


Replay

by kylarossfiercefive



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylarossfiercefive/pseuds/kylarossfiercefive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bailey can be classified as a nerd by anyone’s standards. She loves studying and exploring the world for what it’s worth, including languages and computer science. She spends a lot of time reading and practice various musical instruments. Her friends don’t really understand her and her family holds high expectations that Bailey can only meet. But one day, when she goes to her favorite practice room to start a new piece for piano, she meets a boy who teaches her how to really love a person. Bailey, who loves exploring the world and everything in it, is all of a sudden, scared of exploring the one thing she’s never understood: a person’s heart.</p><p>DONE FOR NANOWRIMO 2013 ~ work in progress ~ FIRST DRAFT</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Main Characters

Bailey Wang: Born out of a family that just raised itself out of poverty, she’s always learned to work hard and suck her feelings in and be friendly to others in order to just stay afloat in society. Her years of experience in her family’s Chinese restaurant have made her realize that she needs to work hard in school and achieve all the goals she sets for herself, otherwise, there’s going to be no future outside of the restaurant for her. The Wang family has no money, so Bailey has to create her own future. No one is going to be able to help her. She works at a science lab to gain experience and to conduct an independent research project in order to enter competitions and become known as a linguist. She loves languages with a passion and can also program with computers. Bailey enjoys playing the piano and violin as much as she can; music is a whole language in its own right. She can only hope, at this point, that her science lab work is successful, otherwise, she’ll have to be slaving away at her schoolwork for even a chance to get into a decent college.

Ryan Cai: He’s lived in an unstable family situation for the majority of his life; his parents rarely keep jobs for more than a year, though currently, Ryan’s mother has a job as a housekeeper that provides steady income. Ryan loves music and would do anything to just play for the rest of his life. But, he knows that he has no money to pay for music school, not to mention that he’ll need a steady income when his parents don’t. In his spare time, he composes music, be it classical or popular music. Ryan doesn’t like writing lyrics to his songs; the best kinds of songs are love songs, and he has no experience with romance. He teaches children music at the nearby music studio for some source of money, but he doesn’t want his life to revolve around monetary expenses. Ryan would rather spend time with loved ones and with music than working in a career he absolutely hates like his parents do. Everything in his future hinges on what talent and hard work he has now.

Jenna Belodorova: She was born in what was a stereotypical, happy family, until, when she was two, something happened that her parents never talk about and they divorced soon after. Since then, she’s lived a life in which her parents often forget about her because they have other children now; her parents have married multiple times and the amount of half-siblings and step-siblings she has can’t even be counted on her fingertips. Jenna feels left out, and often looks to relationships for the love she lacks in her life. Her relationships don’t last long and are very frivolous, but Jenna doesn’t mind. It’s more than she has from her parents. Jenna spends hours in the gym practicing gymnastics and it’s her one passion in life besides finding love that could replace her parents in a heartbeat.

Lauren Wen: Her parents rarely ever talk, which leads everyone to believe that’s the reason why Lauren never talks much either. At first, people think she’s dumb, but they always find out later that she’s just shy. Though she’s shy and not talkative in the slightest, everyone finds her to be mysterious and dreamy. However, her closest friends know how she really is; Lauren’s an open book that anyone can read if they pay enough attention. Yet, no one really pays much attention to her. The one boy she dated left her and Lauren’s always hesitant to open to anyone now. Her lack of social skills has decreased even further. Lauren’s a hard person to open, but when she is close to someone; her overwhelming personality will pour out. She loves acting and wants to become an actress in the future, or at least, do something related to acting, if possible.

Faith Wang: Though her family is quite dysfunctional, Faith finds herself to be quite normal, and even popular among her peers. She’s a cheerleader because she used to spend years at gymnastics and dance classes. Faith loves cheerleading and would never give it up for the world, but in her head, she knows that cheerleading could give her a scholarship of some sort. That money couldn’t be given up so easily. Her sister is on a cheerleading scholarship at the local state university, and Faith can’t rely on her grades to get money. Especially since Bailey, the supposed smartest sibling in the family, will be going to college right before she will. She can’t give up a future that she could make for herself; her family has no money to support her.

Amelia Wang: Her life has spiraled into something she’s never expected from college. She’s working hard to get a teaching degree in chemistry, but she still can’t believe what’s happened the past few years. Amelia never thought of herself as that dedicated to cheerleading, but now she’s on one of the best cheerleading teams in the whole country. Furthermore, she’s gained a scholarship to the same school and is studying one of her favorite subjects to become a teacher. Amelia’s life has turned out to work out wonderfully; she has a new boyfriend and new friends that support her in every endeavor; there aren’t any catty high school girls that pull her down like on the high school cheerleading team. However, she’s very nervous for her siblings. Since she was the third sibling, Amelia knew there’d be some type of monetary aid, but for the rest of her siblings to follow, she can’t begin to predict how the family would pay. Amelia wants a job as fast as possible in order to support the ones she loves the most.

Xavier Markham: He’s always been known as the good boy, and he doesn’t want that reputation change. It’s not hard, really. He’s genuinely nice and careful about everyone he meets. Xavier has a love for music, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life when he leaves high school and goes on to college. He’s one of Ryan’s only friends and Xavier cares about Ryan, which he can’t say for everyone else he meets. Xavier just can’t seem to let go of everything that has happened in his life that has made him the kind person he is today.


	2. Chapter 1

Darkness shadows her friends’ faces. The streetlight is the only artificial light within a half mile radius. She leans her head out of the patio and rests her elbow on the banister. A light breeze blows through the open spaces of the patio, hinting at the beginning of autumn. The wind blows her jet-black hair over her shoulders. She rests her head on her hand and stares off into space. Stars sparkle in the black night. Everything seems right with the world on this night.

“It’s a nice night,” Bailey says, understating the feeling of the night. She feels free; a feeling she hasn’t felt in a long time.

Her friend approaches Bailey on her left. “Yeah, we should totally enjoy it while it lasts. School starts in a week and it’s going to be junior year. There won’t even be time to talk to each other, Bails.” Jenna’s light hair blows in Bailey’s face. Bailey moves a few feet away from her friend to keep looking at the stars.

“Really?” Lauren, Bailey’s other friend, asks while standing in the doorway. Jenna beckons Lauren to come forward to the banister too. Lauren doesn’t budge.

“Yeah,” Jenna says nonchalantly. “At least, that’s what Amelia told me. And the Wang family doesn’t really lie,” Jenna directs the conversation to Bailey. Bailey’s eyes are still focused on the stars hanging above her. Jenna snaps her fingers in front of Bailey’s face, but Bailey isn’t fazed in the slightest. Their years of friendship made her desensitized to Jenna’s crazy antics.

Bailey nods, not saying a word. She’s too mesmerized by the stars to speak. The wind begins to pick up and Bailey’s shirt flows with the current. Jenna sighs and looks up at the sky with her. Lauren stays put at the doorway.

The silence floats in the calm, night air. Bailey likes the silence; it comforts her. School will be here anytime soon. Jenna interrupts it with her mouth that slices the silence like a knife, “So, Bailey, will this be the year you finally get a boyfriend?” Lauren chuckles from a few feet away. Bailey finally takes her eyes off the stars to glare at her best friend.

“That’s not funny. Besides, I don’t need a boyfriend. I’m very independent,” Bailey states with her voice powerful and passionate. She raises her eyebrows once and turns back to the stars. Lauren keeps laughing.

Jenna leans her arm on the wood banister of the patio. “Come on, Bails. Seriously. I’ve had my fair share of romantic affairs -” Bailey almost snorts. “And Lauren’s dated a guy and kissed plenty of others. You’re the only one out of us three who has never, ever, experienced love with a male specimen.”

Bailey rolls her eyes. “I don’t think half of your boyfriends were love,” she mutters under her breath.

“Anyway, this is your year to find a cute guy and fall in love,” Jenna says. She stresses the “o” in “love” for emphasis. Bailey rolls her eyes again.

It’s not that she doesn’t like guys, because she does. She really does. But she just doesn’t have time to have a boy in her life to be her significant other. Bailey’s always learning languages, be it programming languages or ones spoken around the world in daily life. She loves her instruments too and could never give those up for the world. With everything around her to grab her attention, a relationship with a boy just isn’t feasible. She has no idea how anyone dates in high school. Besides, isn’t the idea of love too complex for them to experience yet?

She also doesn’t know any boy that would even consider her to be a mediocre prospect for a girlfriend. No one has ever showed romantic interest in her. Bailey’s never minded. She isn’t one of those popular girls like her younger sister, waving their pom-poms around and talented in the arts. She isn’t extremely social like Jenna or mysterious like Lauren. Bailey doesn’t think there’s anything so special about her that would make a boy think she was someone to fight for. It doesn’t bother her in any way. That’s what she tells herself.

“We could go on triple dates,” Lauren says in her soft, soothing voice that matches the serene night. Bailey glares at Lauren; she thought Lauren was on her side for this discussion.

“See!” Jenna exclaims. She skips over to Lauren and throws an arm around Lauren’s shoulders. “Even Lauren Wen agrees with me. That’s saying something.” Lauren begins to glare at Jenna too.

Bailey finally leaves the banister. “If anything romantically interesting comes up, I’ll tell you both for sure. You’re my best friends. But I am not searching for my perfect prince charming to sweep me off my feet. Whatever happens will happen and I can’t stop it from happening. So there you have it.” The breeze blows in so quickly and forcefully that it almost blows Bailey off of her feet. With that, she pushes through both of her friends to go inside her house.

Lauren is the first to catch up with Bailey when she almost reaches Bailey’s bedroom that she shares with her younger sisters, Faith and Celine. “We were kidding, Bailey! Don’t be upset at us. We just really want you to be happy, you know? You are our best friend and all… so we just want you to be happy.”

Bailey blushes and turns around to face Lauren and Jenna, who is slowly walking in the hallway. “Thanks, Lauren, and I guess thanks to you too, Jenna.” Jenna smirks, her red lips pursing up. “But don’t you know that I’m already happy? I have a big, great, nice family and friends just as lovely. I have time to play instruments and learn all the languages I want to learn. I can explore the world through school and on my own. I’m very satisfied with my life right now.” Bailey tucks a loose strand of her black hair behind her ear, being careful not to get it stuck in her pearl earring.

Jenna embraces Bailey, her hair recently dyed dark blonde tangling with Bailey’s. “Sorry about teasing you. It makes up for all the times in fifth grade when you tried to speak Russian with my dad.”

“But I can speak fluent Russian now,” Bailey mentions, not letting go of Jenna yet.

“Whatever.”

Jenna is half-Russian and half-Chinese; Bailey loves going over to see Jenna’s father because they can have conversations in Russian together. It’s one of the many languages Bailey can speak fluently, along with English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean. The Belodorov house is always full of energy, especially since Jenna’s father has gotten married three times and her mother has gotten married twice more. Jenna was their first child and the marriage hadn’t lasted long.

Lauren is the opposite; both her parents are Chinese and they’ve been happily married for years upon years. But Lauren is their only child, which Lauren detests. Jenna doesn’t fit in at home and Lauren has no one to talk to at home, which is why they spend many days and nights at the Wang household. This includes this night. They only have a week before the first day of school, and this is their last sleepover before school starts up again and they all become busy with their various activities.

“So,” Jenna says as Bailey pulls away. “Are you still part of the book club or something?”

“Of course. I’m president of it this year. Even if there are only five members this year, everything will turn out ok. We’ll recruit more freshmen, I’m sure. And you two can come too! You’re welcome to join, always,” Bailey advertises.

Lauren immediately shakes her head. “I can’t, Bailey. I have a job this year.”

“And I wouldn’t be caught in the book club, no offense,” Jenna says. “It’s not really my thing, if you know what I mean.”

Bailey knows what Jenna means. The last meeting Jenna attended, she had fallen asleep within the first five minutes. Bailey was embarrassed, since it was also freshman year and she had wanted to make a good impression on the rest of the club. She also had a small crush on the book club president that year. But it hadn’t turned to anything but a schoolgirl fling and when he graduated, Bailey had almost forgotten about him.

Now she’s president of her high school book club and has nothing to be embarrassed about. Until, of course, her best friends start ragging on her for being president of something so nerdy and weird. Bailey always does her best to defend herself and her hobbies, but it never really gets through to them, especially Jenna. But Bailey does her best to never insult gymnastics, which is Jenna’s life. Bailey likes watching gymnastics, regardless. She wouldn’t tease Jenna about being a gymnast.

“Get Faith to join,” Jenna says as they enter in Bailey’s bedroom. “I mean, she’s a freshman and all. It would be nice for her. No reputation at all.”

Before Bailey can refute this, Lauren interrupts with, “She’s on the cheerleading squad already, Jenna. Her reputation is already solid. She’s also planning to be on the yearbook team as a photographer. I don’t think the book club is going to help her in any way.” Lauren sneaks a peek at Bailey, who has fallen onto her mattress face down.

“Nice try, Laur,” Jenna pats her on the back and takes a seat next to Bailey. “No, seriously, Bails, we’re sorry for being so annoying to you today. We just love you so much and you’re different from us. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yes,” Lauren agrees, sitting on the other side of Bailey. She brushes her black hair out of her eyes and proceeds to massage Bailey’s shoulders. “We do love you so much, Bailey. And we’re sorry that you have us as friends.” Jenna scoffs at the idea.

Bailey has known Jenna and Lauren for practically as long as she can remember. Lauren’s family and her family have been family friends since before either of them was born. Lauren, older by a few months, even met Bailey the day after she was born. Jenna, on the other hand, met them at preschool when she and Lauren were playing princesses on the first day. Ever since, the three of them have been peas in a pod and never separated. They all have different interests, but it somehow makes their friendship stronger.

Someone knocks on the bedroom door and the three adolescents look up to see who it is. A girl exactly Bailey’s height with a cute baby face walks in with confidence and flair. Bailey is the first to look away and faceplants in her pillow once more. “Hey, Faith. It’s nice to see you here.”

Faith sits on her mattress across from Bailey’s and asks, “What were you three even talking about? It sounded like some kind of love confession. Oh my goodness, please say none of you have crushes on Bailey. She’s too weird for any of you and you probably deserve someone better.”

“We’re back at this again,” Bailey says. No one understands her; her voice is muffled by the pillow.

Faith throws a pillow at Bailey and Jenna and Lauren swiftly dodge it so it promptly hits Bailey’s back. Bailey groans, but doesn’t say anything. Jenna and Faith start talking about something random about the high school that Faith is anxious for. Lauren keeps massaging Bailey’s back and her hands are so soft and soothing that Bailey almost falls asleep with her touch. Yet as soon as Bailey closes her eyes, she hears either Jenna or Faith yell about something and she’s back, awake as ever.

Bailey thinks about what it would be like to fall in love. How would that be possible? To have someone like you when you like them back? The chances of that could only be so big. People change too, and all of a sudden, or even gradually, they could stop loving you completely. It would hurt so much. Bailey doesn’t know how to recover from emotional pain like that; she doesn’t find herself to be that strong. So she avoids it as much as possible. Not as if any boy has ever romantically fancied her before. There’s nothing to worry about.

Faith waves her hand in her sister’s face. “Hello? Did you even hear what we said?” Jenna is smirking. Lauren’s still massaging Bailey’s back carefully and thoroughly.

“I didn’t,” Bailey admits. Lauren’s hands slowly come off of Bailey’s back to reply to a text. Bailey turns over on her back to look up at her younger sister. “I didn’t think it was that important, you know, since you’re Faith and all. What did you say?”

“Not funny,” Faith says, rolling her eyes and sitting next to her sister.

Jenna states with the smirk still on her face, “We were just wondering what you were thinking about. You were quite pensive, you know.” Bailey sighs. There’s never a day when Jenna doesn’t torment Bailey. At least, Bailey doesn’t remember a day so serene and peaceful.

Lauren nudges Bailey in her stomach, making Bailey fold over. “Maybe you were thinking about someone special?” Bailey groans again. It’s already hard enough having Jenna and Faith on her back, not to mention her teasing siblings Forrest and Celine. Lauren as another force only makes Bailey upset.

“Name a boy in my life that isn’t a family member of mine or a teacher,” Bailey says, sitting up. No one says anything for a moment or two; it’s a rare time of silence in a household with seven siblings and friends over every hour. She soaks this moment in until someone interrupts it, as always.

“I can’t think of any,” Jenna retorts, her right hand cupped under her chin. “Which is even more of a reason to go talk to people and make new friends. See the world.” She takes a quick pause. “Oh, I know! There’s going to be a party at Mark Murphy’s house, and I know there are going to be some cute guys. We should totally go!” Faith looks completely enraptured with the idea of a high school party.

“You think people like me go to high school parties and get drunk and hook up with boys?” Bailey almost shouts, trying to keep her voice as low as possible. “Because, Jenna, you’ve got that so wrong. If anything, everyone there will be like, ‘why is Bailey Wang here? Isn’t she some kind of freaky nerd?’ or something like that. I don’t honestly need to deal with the drama that comes with me attending a party.”

Jenna shrugs. “Whatever you want, Bails. I was just asking. I haven’t been to many parties myself. They’re not as great as everyone makes them out to be.”

“What isn’t as great it’s made out to be?” Someone with a high voice says while standing in the doorway with a duffel bag over her shoulder and a backpack placed firmly on her shoulders. Her dark hair slides down her back and her eyes sparkle in the small amount of light left in the room. Faith and Bailey get up at the same time to embrace their older sister.

Amelia hugs Faith first. “I’ve missed you, Amelia!” Faith squeals as they hold each other tight for a minute or so. Amelia responds the same way to her younger sister. As a college student, Amelia rarely ever comes home because she has to study or hang out with her college friends. Bailey waits patiently next to them for her turn to embrace her sister.

Amelia finally lets go of Faith and moves over to Bailey. She wraps her arms around Bailey and draws her closer to her shoulders because Bailey is taller than her. “I’ve missed you so, so much,” Amelia says. Bailey’s eyes are tearing up, but she internally vows not to cry. Her sister will always be there for her. It’s just a phone call or email away. It’s not a big deal at all. She repeats this over and over again.

Yet when Bailey speaks, her voice cracks. Someone laughs behind them. “I missed you too, Amelia. Don’t leave this time. Do you have to go to college again?” The sound of Amelia’s laugh warms Bailey’s heart.

“Of course, silly! Besides, what would I do at home? You have your science experiment you’re starting at the lab the first week of school. Howie and Scott are both at college too. Faith is cheerleading and taking photos. David and Celine both have middle and elementary school. There’s nothing for me here, Bailey. Besides, you’ve survived without your big sister for a year already,” Amelia says without letting go. Bailey doesn’t ever want to let go, but she feels immature and foolish, so she promptly releases her sister and goes to sit back down on her mattress.

Lauren asks as Bailey shifts in her bed, “How is your science project going? Have you started?”

Bailey shrugs. “I think it’s going according to plan. I can’t really confirm anything until I start testing and collecting data. But yes, I’ve started planning everything out, so hopefully it’ll all work out.” Her project is something she’s thought of for years, because Bailey loves languages and music. So to try to find a correlation, or maybe notice one, has been a topic on her mind for a long time.

The professor she’s working with is giving her her lab to work in and all necessary resources. Otherwise, Bailey’s doing all the work and she’s so happy that she can do independent research. But now she doesn’t have much time for anything else except research, which hinders her desire to practice piano and violin. But she knows she’ll do anything to make her dreams happen. So she’s taking on the challenge.

Faith takes Amelia’s hand and drags her down to her mattress. “So, Amelia, what’s high school like? Will I survive?”

Amelia laughs and flips her long, dark brown hair. Her eyes squint as she smiles. “Why don’t you ask the girls who are actually in high school right now?” She points to Bailey, Jenna, and Lauren on the other side of the bedroom.

Faith crosses her arms over her chest and melodramatically sighs. “It’s because they’re no help at all. Seriously! Don’t laugh. The three of them are the most unhelpful people I have ever met in my whole entire life.”

“Well, I’m sorry that none of us have experience being a popular cheerleader with amazing artistic ability,” Jenna sneers, her arms crossed over her chest just like Faith’s.

Amelia shushes Jenna with one look. “It’s only because you need to have your own experience. I barely helped Bailey out when she was going into her freshman year. I’m not even going to say it was because I was a senior, because that’s not entirely true. But I think Bailey had a nicer time trying to figure out high school by herself and not with me following her every move and helping her every second she was in trouble.”

“I was never in trouble -” Bailey starts, her dark brown eyes glaring at her older sister.

Amelia completely ignores her. “It’s better to figure out things by yourself. Neither Howie nor Scott even attempted to come to my rescue whenever I was lost. It’s a great way to check your independence and all.”

The room falls silent. Bailey’s eyelids flutter; she debates falling asleep early or staying awake like what happens at most of the other sleepovers the three of them have had. Soon, Bailey will be busier than ever before and she wants to savor every moment of sleep she can have before junior year starts up and she spends days and days in a linguistics lab.

“What about boyfriends?” Faith asks abruptly. Her cute, baby-like face scrunches up at the thought of high school relationships. “What’s the whole situation there with boys and all? Like, is it normal for freshman to date and are there any guys worth my time?” Bailey snorts. Why is Faith even thinking of dating? It’s not that big of a priority at the age of fourteen, at least, Bailey thinks it shouldn’t be. There are other things more worth anyone’s time.

It takes a moment for everyone to collect their thoughts. The dating scene at Winter High School isn’t very formal; it’s relaxed and dating isn’t viewed as a social necessity. Regardless, many girls date at least once in their high school career because someone likes them and they like them back. Bailey opens her mouth to say something about how dating in high school doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things if you don’t fall in love, but Lauren beats her to it. “You shouldn’t worry about dating,” she says. “It isn’t anything to worry about, really. You’ll be fine, Faith. You’ll find someone that loves you as much as you love them. It might not happen in high school, but it will happen in your life. That’s all you can hope for right now, I think.” Lauren ends her statement by patting Faith on the back.

Bailey nods. Lauren, though she never really speaks often, always says what Bailey thinks, just in a more eloquent and refined manner. Bailey’s command of language is never perfect; all the languages she knows gets mixed up in her head and she loses control many times. She debates talking in Russian to see what kind of reaction she’ll get out of the rest of them, but decides against it. It isn’t worth all the ridicule she will get later for showing off or confusing them.

“That sounds so perfect,” Jenna declares. “It isn’t to say that if you honestly like someone that you shouldn’t pursue them though. Because, you know, you should do anything in your power to fight for someone you love and all.” Jenna runs her hands through her long hair and fixes a knot in it.

Faith nods. “I guess that makes sense. I don’t really know the social stigma at the high school, which is why I’m even asking about all of this in the first place. I can hear a lot in the girls’ locker room. Nothing’s really private in a cheerleading squad.” Faith stretches out on her bed, accidentally kicking her oldest sister. “Sorry, Amelia. Just stretching.”

Amelia shrugs the pain off and continues on with the discussion. She shifts in her white jean shorts. “Yeah, I don’t think dating is such a big deal in the high school. I mean, like, I only dated two guys while in high school, and three if you count my prom date. I turned out perfectly social and fine in college. Don’t worry about it too much, Faith. Besides, if it was really necessary, Bailey would’ve found a significant other in her life by now.” Amelia winks.

Bailey groans. “I have the best sisters ever.”

“You know it,” Faith replies.

Bailey throws the pillow across the room at no particular person. It hits the wall and flops on Faith’s toned stomach. Faith moans and throws the pillow back, hitting Bailey right in the face. “Ow!” Bailey exclaims, turning her head to the wall.

“Sorry!” Faith shouts.

“This is what I’ve missed while I was at college,” Amelia says with a smile brightening her whole face. Her dark brown eyes shine in the synthetic light and glow with the warmth with being near loved ones. Bailey notices love radiating across her face. She wants to feel like that when she gets older; she wants to look at her siblings, friends, and perhaps even a husband and children with all the love in the world. Her parents have to take care of seven siblings and Bailey’s always wanted a large, loud family of her own. It just sometimes feels like she never feels as loved as her other siblings. The distribution isn’t always even. Bailey knows whenever she has a family, she wants to love her children all equally. No biases. No favorites.

She wonders if Amelia has a boyfriend that she hasn’t told anyone about yet. The shining of her face cannot just be caused by her siblings and their best friends. Someone else has to be influencing her emotions in ways Bailey can’t imagine at the moment. After contemplation, she abruptly asks, “Amelia? Are you dating anyone right at the moment? Like a boyfriend?”

Jenna, who was in the middle of laughing, chokes on her breath. “What? What kind of question is that? Wouldn’t she tell us?” All eyes turn to Amelia, whose face is a deep, bright red. “Wouldn’t you?”

Amelia puts her hands to her face to cover the redness. Bailey immediately knows Amelia’s trying her best to avoid the subject completely. Faith whines, “Come on, Amelia! Tell us if you are or not!” Jenna also makes an off-hand comment about the situation. Bailey and Lauren exchange glances.

“Fine! Fine. I am only going to tell you the truth because you are either my sister or my sister’s friend. And I honestly think you all deserve the truth from me,” Amelia says. Everyone in the room leans in as Amelia’s voice grows lower and lower. “The truth is that I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Jenna and Faith scream simultaneously. “Are you serious?” “That was so not the truth, Amelia!” Bailey and Lauren catch each other’s eye again and giggle together, doubling over in laughter. 

Amelia’s face is still red. “You’ve known me for years! You have to know I was kidding. I’m really dating someone.” She reaches for her purse and pulls out her cell phone. She scrolls her through her cell phone photo album and describes her boyfriend at the same time. “His name is Richard Tan and he’s Chinese, so you don’t have to worry about that. He’s a year older than me and an economics major. He attends the same college as I do.”

“You sound like you’re describing him to Mom and Dad,” Faith says.

“I agree,” Bailey responds. Faith outstretches her hand and Bailey reaches across the mattresses to high-five Faith. They grunt and slap their hands together.

Amelia rolls her eyes. “I haven’t told them yet. I’ve just told my roommates and you guys.” She pulls up the photo and shows it to Faith, who makes a noise of approval by pursing her lips together. “So secretive,” Amelia rolls her eyes. Faith passes the phone to Jenna, Lauren, and Bailey. Richard’s eyes seem to stare into your soul; he gives off a mysterious aura. His jet-black hair falls into his eyes and his smile lights up the rest of the photo. Bailey immediately feels like she could connect with him on a deeper level.

“He’s very handsome,” Bailey declares, handing Amelia’s cell phone back to her. “I’m sure he’s a very nice individual too.”

“He is,” Amelia says, her dazzling eyes showing how happy she is with her life at the time. “He’s very sweet and confident. I’m sure you would like him, Bailey. He seems to be like the kind of boy you would strike a conversation with.” Bailey doesn’t know how to respond to that. “Anyway, any interesting developments in love lives going on with any of you?”

Jenna shakes her head. “There’s nothing worth mentioning, really. I’m ready for the school year to start. Maybe there’ll be a guy for me.”

Slowly, the conversation drags from everyone’s love lives to more trivial topics, like popular music and new television shows set to come out within the next month. Bailey hasn’t much to say about the new television shows because she has no time to watch television anymore. As for music, she doesn’t find pop music all too entertaining. She prefers soft instrumentals and sweet, slow love ballads. There’s nothing too popular about anything she often listens to. Her interest in their discussion slowly wanes until she falls asleep on Lauren’s shoulder.

Soon enough, Bailey is awakened by loud screaming in her ear. She shrieks. “Do you guys really have to be like this?” Jenna and Faith hold on to each other while laughing. Lauren has a smile on her face. Amelia isn’t in the room at all. “Where’s Amelia?”

“She went to go tell Celine that it’s time to sleep. It’s midnight already,” Lauren says, pointing to the wall clock. “Amelia’s staying the night instead going back to college and sleeping in her comfortable dorm room.”

Bailey states, her head still spinning from just waking up, “Well, that means that there’ll be six people sleeping in this one room.” Bailey detests the space her shared bedroom has, considering her wingspan can basically touch one wall to the other wall. It isn’t enough room for the three girls who stay in the house the most often, never mind Amelia, Jenna, and Lauren along with them.

They go through their various end of the day routines; Bailey changes out of her shorts and t-shirt into another t-shirt and cotton shorts as pajamas. She brushes her teeth and settles in bed, a mattress she has to share with Amelia because there’s no more space in the room.

Bailey’s eyes close and she almost falls in a deep slumber when she hears Amelia say, “I love you, Bailey.”


	3. Chapter 2

Bailey walks on the sidewalk of downtown Winter, Connecticut and smells the scent of hot coffee waft through the air. The morning rush has started and cars are buzzing in the streets. People are talking about everything and nothing all at once. Children are playing on the sidewalk and shop owners are readying their businesses for another workday. She feels a slight breeze come in the street and she brings her arms closer to her chest as she walks around the town. A few trees have leaves that are gradually altering their colors. Fall has arrived and Bailey can’t wait for everything to officially begin.

Brick buildings surround her as she walks on the sidewalk, maneuvering around townspeople talking about everything from rising stock prices to the advent of the school year. She loves the hustle and bustle of the suburban town; it isn’t as busy as a huge city, but it has a quick pace like a horse galloping through a valley. It’s peaceful and tranquil, yet fast and rushed. A paradox of sorts, yes, but Bailey loves it. She loves a lot about her town.

She debates entering her parents’ Chinese restaurant before heading over to the music studio for practicing. She stands outside the open door, listening to her parents converse between each other in their native Mandarin. Bailey sighs and rests her head in the doorway. Her parents went through a lot to get to where they are today in the United States. They emigrated from Harbin, China when they were nineteen and twenty-two, respectively. Neither of them had any college-level experience and with the amount of money they had, they could never afford to go to college.

Bailey hates hearing about how her parents struggled for the longest time. She knows that she has to at least work as hard as them to develop a future for herself as well, since her family doesn’t have much money to begin with. There isn’t money for her to go anywhere except a state university, unless she gets a scholarship at another school in which case they would check for whichever one was cheaper. Bailey’s life is always unexpected when it comes to money because some months may be great at the restaurant, while others may be down months. And her three siblings are going through college at the moment, so she can’t ask for anything extremely expensive.

The issue of money is one reason Bailey’s working in a science lab this year. She can make money at the lab to provide for her needs and for her family’s as well. In years past, she worked in the restaurant but never made any money. She’s delegating those responsibilities to her younger siblings while she works in the lab. It’s hard running a restaurant.

Her parents, after arriving in America, worked at various jobs: cleaning, waitressing, and any other job they could find that could last them for as long as they could hold out. After their second son, Scott, was born, they finally had enough money to open a Chinese restaurant in Winter and ever since, that’s their main job and focus. Bailey doesn’t want her life to be like the one her parents had. She wants something more for herself. Her parents like the restaurant, but she knows they would rather be doing another job that they dreamed of when they were as young as she is. Bailey wants to reach her dreams. She doesn’t want to be stuck at the bottom of the social chain wondering what went wrong in her whole life.

She’s up early today because she wants to get some piano practicing in before heading to the lab in the afternoon to finalize all her plans before working on the project fully. Bailey’s teacher wants her to get the Waltz in C sharp minor by Chopin to perfection because Bailey’s teacher signed her up for a state-wide piano recital that showcases the best of the best. The other piece she’s practicing isn’t up to par yet, so Bailey has to relearn the piece and make sure everything is in proper order. She doesn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of the best of the best in the state.

Bailey knows she isn’t the best piano player in the world. She’s far from it, really. She loves music though, which is what pushes her through all the hard times with practicing. Her whole passion doesn’t lie within music; her passion is languages and communication throughout the world. But music is a language; it speaks volumes to anyone who listens with their full attention. A sad song, even without lyrics, can be interpreted as sad, gloomy, and dismal. A song about love can make anyone feel loved instantly. Bailey desires to communicate in any effective way and one of the most important languages in the world, if not the most important, is music. This is the main reason why she stays with music.

She also enjoys playing the piano and violin, but she could give it up if she didn’t have time if it wasn’t such a major part of society and communication. Piano and violin are so engrained in Bailey’s mind that she often finds herself thinking about the pieces she’s playing on both instruments and such. Another reason for using her musical talent is for her college-level music theory class she’s taking in high school this year. Bailey wants to be able to interpret music theory like she would the theory of any other language.

She isn’t very competent when it comes to composing music, so she wants to learn that aspect of music theory in the class as well. Composing music is like writing in a certain language and playing music is like speaking in that same language.

Bailey reaches the music studio, a building full of practice rooms and music teachers. She doesn’t have a lesson today, but her will to work hard for her performance makes her come in. She nods to the secretary at the front desk and looks down the narrow hallway with ten practice rooms, five on the left and five on the right. Bailey slowly walks to her favorite practice room, the one all the way in the back on the left side. No one ever really uses that room for some reason, so Bailey knows she will never be disturbed while practicing.

She tucks her sheet music under her arm and opens the door, letting the air filled with music and happiness hit her. Bailey starts humming the piece and moves over to the piano, when she realizes someone’s sitting on the piano bench. She squeals. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think anyone was in here since no one really ever uses this practice room for anything. I’ll go now.” Bailey turns on her heels and walks away, but the person’s voice stops her.

The person’s voice is soothing and soft, but full of energy and strength at the same time. “Don’t go,” he says. Bailey turns around to face him. She finally gets a good look at who the person is sitting in front of the grand piano. He has dark brown hair that almost falls into his eyes. His dark brown eyes are open and focused on the sheet music in front of him. His face doesn’t show much of an expression, but Bailey feels at ease and comforted when she looks at him. He doesn’t lift his head up to face her, so Bailey doesn’t move closer to him. She stands a distance halfway from the door and halfway from the piano.

“Why don’t you come closer?” he asks. Bailey reluctantly inches closer and closer to the piano until she reaches the piano and is standing right next to him. “I know no one uses the piano room,” he says off-handedly, still not looking at Bailey. “That’s the main reason why I use this room too. No one’s ever disturbed me. Well, not until now, at least.” He finally looks up at her and smiles. His lips press together; his smile is cute and shy. Bailey already feels some sort of affinity towards him.

Bailey shrugs. “Sorry. I didn’t think anyone would be here so early.” She twirls a stand of her black hair around her index finger, her other hand holding her sheet music. “I can go now, if you want. Sorry for all the trouble.” As she says this, she doesn’t leave and instead watches his every move.

“No, you don’t have to go. I was just composing a piano and cello duet for a composing competition next month. I usually come really in the morning to clear my thoughts and focus before I go and teach piano and cello in the rooms nearby,” he says, his eyes never leaving Bailey’s eyes. She wants to look away, but can’t seem to. “Why are you here so early in the morning?”

Bailey finally turns away to look down at her sheet music. “I have a recital coming up. I have to polish up my piece.” She realizes that she’s always nervous around boys and she tries to keep her composure as she speaks. Bailey takes a deep breath and calms herself down. It’s just a high school boy who happens to like music and composes his own material. It isn’t anything to anxious or worried about.

He reaches for her music and she lets go of the papers with a gasp. “Waltz in C sharp minor.” His eyebrows raise and he looks at her again. Bailey blushes. “I have a feeling you know pieces much harder than this. Why do you need to practice this piece?”

Bailey sighs. “My teacher signed me up for a state-wide recital and my other pieces aren’t in perfect condition. So we decided that I would play this piece because we know it will turn out great if I do play it. I just came in to work on it a little bit before the big day comes.” She reaches for the sheet music, but he pulls it away from her, using his larger wingspan to hold it away from her. Bailey can only assume that he’s much taller than she is. “Why won’t you give me my music back?”

He puts her music on the piano’s built-in music stand. He points to the first page. “Play for me,” he says. “Unless you don’t want to, of course. That’s fine with me too. Either way. I would like to hear you play though. You seem to have a good command of music.”

Bailey sits down on the bench next to him. “Um, I guess I’ll play. Keep in mind that I haven’t touched this piece in at least eight or so months.”

He smiles at her again and Bailey’s skin flushes once more. “It’s fine. Just think of it as practice. Pretend I’m not here.”

Bailey positions her fingers over the keys. “You make it sound much easier than it really is.”

He laughs and Bailey can’t help but think how melodic it sounds. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Bailey takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She tells her mind to focus on the music and melody and everything will slowly fall into place. Pretend that it’s just you and the piano. Bailey opens her eyes and begins playing. In the middle of the piece, Bailey loses her focus somewhat because his eyes haven’t left her fingers, but she retains composure and finishes her piece with a flourish. He stands and claps for her. Bailey’s eyes shift down to the keys and her black hair falls down, covering her side profile.

He sits back down and taps her shoulder lightly. “You don’t need much practice at all!” he exclaims. “You’re already pretty good. Maybe a few dynamics issues, but otherwise, you’re in really great shape. You should have more confidence in yourself.” His smile still threatens Bailey’s sanity.

“Thanks,” she says, pushing her long hair back behind her ear.

They sit in silence for a moment. Bailey doesn’t know exactly what to say to him and she thinks of leaving before the situation can get any weirder. He finally breaks the silence. “That silence was awkward. I’m sorry; I’m really bad with conversations. My older brother tells me that I’m too quiet and that I only talk a lot when the topic of music comes about. He even goes so far to say I talk too much about music. So I apologize.”

Bailey smiles for the first time since she walked in the room. “No, it’s fine. It’s always good to be quiet. I feel like everything’s so loud in this world, you know?”

“Yeah,” he replies, taking his eyes off of Bailey and looking upward at the ceiling. “I completely understand what you’re saying. Quiet music is just as good, if not better, than loud music. A harmonious balance between both is best. Oh, am I saying too much again? Sorry about that.” He chuckles and Bailey’s smile grows wider.

“Don’t worry about that,” she tells him. She fingers a few keys on the piano and tries her best to improvise something on the spot. Nothing great comes out of her thirty second experiment and she puts her hands in her lap to distract herself from the awkward situation. Bailey wonders if he’s even paying attention to their conversation anymore. He’s just staring into space and Bailey kind of wants to leave and get a move on her practicing. But she doesn’t want to leave for some reason. It’s the first time in a while since she’s felt an affinity with someone.

He, with his bigger hands and longer fingers, begins to take over the key Bailey was playing in and creates an elegant improvisation piece. Bailey watches him play with her mouth wide open and gaping. She’s awestruck by how easily he can begin to play on the spot without a second thought. His hands fly around on the piano; he plays with various dynamics, tempos, and chords. She doesn’t realize she’s holding in her breath until he finishes the piece with a long tonic chord and a flourish of arpeggios in the E major key.

“Wow. You’re amazing at improvisation,” she states, looking at him with her eyes wide and alert. “I can’t believe it. I’ve never met anyone who’s so good at playing in the spur of the moment.”

He shrugs. “It’s a thing of mine. I like composing music so improvisation comes in handy when I’m stuck on a chord or tempo or something of that sort. It takes my mind off thoughts I don’t really want to think about at the moment.” He takes his eyes off of the ivory keys of the piano and looks at her. They make eye contact for a split second before Bailey turns away. “You should try it, you know, if there’s anything on your mind that you want to get rid of.”

Bailey presses a few keys before responding. “Maybe I’ll try it. But I don’t really have time to sit and contemplate and improvise…” her voice trails off before she can begin to start crying. She knows how busy she’s going to be this year and her amount of free time will effectively equal zero throughout junior year. There isn’t any time to fool around; her parents would see her and make her work in the restaurant as soon as she could sit down for a five minute break.

“Oh. Well, it’s really helpful, regardless. I highly recommend it.” Bailey can’t help but think he’s speaking as if he was selling a mediocre product to her. His dark, soft eyes turn back to the piano keys and he fiddles a little bit more with melodies and harmonies of another improvised piece. She closes her eyes and leans her head back, listening to the beautiful music he crafts within an instantaneous reaction of his mind. She almost falls asleep until he plays a leading note without an end tonic note to follow. Bailey, out of instinct, presses the tonic chord.

He smiles at her with his front teeth shining brightly as the sun of the morning. “Good. You’re not one of those musicians who can end a song on a leading note and not resolve it and still move on with the rest of their lives.” Bailey has to laugh at that. Her years of musical training have prepped her for ending pieces on correct notes no matter what happens. It’s too hard for her to hear a piece and have it end on a note other than the tonic. It bothers her until she hears the sound of the correct note to resolve the piece once and for all.

“I just realized,” he says, mindlessly pressing more keys on the piano. “I don’t know your name and you don’t know mine. Unless you recognize me from somewhere, in which case, I don’t have control of.” He sticks out his hand for her to shake. Bailey firmly grasps his hand and they shake their hands in a similar rhythm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name’s Ryan. I’m Ryan Cai.”

Bailey releases her hand from his grip. “I’m Bailey Wang.”

“Wang?” he asks. She nods. “Oh, so you’re the daughter of the Wang family that owns the Winter Chinese Restaurant, yes?” She nods again. Bailey’s never been ashamed of being the daughter of two chefs barely making enough money to make ends meet, but she’s just beginning to realize what her dreams are and how she will never want to be anything like her parents. She’s about to cry again when Ryan says off-handedly, “The crab legs there are really great.”

Bailey almost loses it. She bites her lip and looks up to the ceiling to keep tears from streaming down her face. She doesn’t want to cry in front of someone she doesn’t even know. Bailey’s parents are only known as cooks for a restaurant. They are so much more than that and the Wang family in general is much more than the restaurant they own. She needs to break free from the ties that bind her to a life that she doesn’t want to live. She takes in a few deep breaths until she knows that tears won’t fall out of her eyes. Bailey says, trying to keep her voice under control, “Yeah. Sure.”

Ryan hears something in Bailey’s voice and whips his head around to face her. He opens his mouth to say something, but decides against it. Bailey sneaks a peek out of the corner of her eye and telepathically thanks him for not saying about the situation. Instead, he touches his bony nose and thinks about something to say to Bailey.

Bailey breaks the silence first. “Well, I should get going soon. I mean, I still have to practice my piece. I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.” She takes her sheet music off the piano stand, but doesn’t make any move to stand up.

“You’re really going so soon?” Ryan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Unless there’s something else you want to show me, then yes, I should. I still have a lot to do throughout the day today and I don’t have time to waste,” Bailey states as civilly as she can possibly get.

Ryan shakes his head. “You really need to learn to savor the moment and listen to music with ease and gentleness. Listen. Don’t be so busy and fussy with everything. Take time to appreciate your surroundings and the music nearby.”

Bailey sighs. “That’s much easier said than done.” She pushes her black hair behind her ear a few times before tying it all up in a ponytail. She ignores Ryan’s eyes staring at her. “Much easier said than done,” she whispers under her breath.

He laughs bitterly. “Not really, Bailey.” She thinks she stops breathing for a moment when he says her name out loud. “It will make your life so much better. Trust me on this one. Do you trust me?” he asks, tilting his head towards the piano.

“I…” Bailey’s voice trails off. “I think I do.”

“Then you should take my advice,” he says. “Well, you don’t have to. I don’t want to pressure anyone. But I speak from experience when it comes to this… and it’s a good idea.” Ryan runs his fingers through his hair. Bailey has no idea how to respond to him.

“Here, how about this,” Ryan suggests. “Let me play this piece I just finished last night. I want you to just relax and don’t think about everything going on in your life. Just let the music take you away.” He pulls his sheet music out of his pine green backpack. “Cool?”

Bailey can only reply with what Ryan wants to hear. “Yeah, cool. I’ll try.”

He grins widely and begins to play slowly and softly. Sweet notes flow out of his hands and into the ears of them both. Bailey does her best to sit and just listen to the music and stop worrying about everything going on around her. She begins to let go of all the thoughts bothering her and she takes deep breaths to calm herself. Relaxing shouldn’t be this much of a struggle for one individual person, but it is for Bailey.

His playing gets louder and louder and with each increment of increasing loudness, Bailey feels more and more tranquil. Bailey lets her hair out of her ponytail and lets it fall in her face without her brushing it back like she habitually does. The piece has a nice chord progression and melody, Bailey notices. The harmonies are simplistic, but still add to the full effect of the piece. Bailey already thinks Ryan is a great composer with this one piece. She immediately begins to wonder if he can play any other instruments before realizing she’s thinking way too much already. Bailey closes her eyes and her head slowly sways to the beat.

In a moment, the piece ends and Ryan puts away the sheet music. “I saw that you were enjoying yourself while I was playing,” he mentions nonchalantly.

“Yeah, I was. That was a great piece you played and composed just now,” Bailey says, putting her hair back up.

“Thanks,” Ryan says. They sit in silence again. Bailey doesn’t like this silence, this uncomfortable feeling of restriction that limits her every breath. “Well,” Ryan says. “I’m working on a duet for piano and cello because those are the two classical instruments I play. I’m kind of having some trouble with the melody for the ending.” He bites his lip and looks down at the keys. “I… hold on.” He grabs his backpack and rummages around for papers. “Ah, here it is. This is the duet right here. All the melodies I try don’t sound quite right and I want the sound to be different from the beginning. Not full circle, if you understand what I mean.”

Bailey thinks for a moment before replying. “I could try playing the piano while you play the cello. Maybe it would turn out better if we played together. You could hear how everything sounds together before focusing on an ending that really stands out.”

Ryan’s eyes immediately widen and his mouth falls open a little bit. “Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Nothing,” Ryan says quickly. He walks over to the lone wooden chair and grabs his cello. “Can you press an A note for me? I need to tune.”

Bailey presses the note and after Ryan finishes tuning that string, she says, “I play the violin as well. I understand what tuning is for string instruments.”

Ryan looks up from his cello and raises an eyebrow. “Well, we have a sassy one here.” Bailey shakes her head and plays another note, hiding her red face from his view. He finishes tuning and plays a few notes before asking, “Are you sure you can play this piece from the start? Don’t you want to take some time and practice it a bit before playing?”

Bailey sighs. “I guess I should.” She plays notes and chords for the most part on key, since the piece is in G minor and there are only two flats to worry about. She takes about five minutes and then tells Ryan that she’s ready. He nods.

“Five, six, seven, eight,” Ryan counts out loud before nodding to signal Bailey to play. They keep the same slow rhythm throughout the piece. Bailey tries her best to not make any mistakes, but Ryan’s cello playing overshadows her piano talent. She attempts to relax while playing with him; it doesn’t work because she starts missing notes here and there that mess up the rhythm. Ryan seems to not be fazed by her mistakes when Bailey sneaks a peek over at him. Bailey focuses on each note until the ending comes and the whole piece falls apart.

“I don’t know,” Ryan admits. “I have no idea how to end the piece effectively.”

Bailey stands up, pushing herself off of the piano bench and walks over to him. She leans over his shoulder and stares at his sheet music with all his annotations. “I don’t really know either, to be honest. You’re the composer. But I think if you don’t want to go full circle, it has to be something loud and forceful. It can’t be anything like the beginning of the piece which was light and airy, if you know what I mean?”

Ryan agrees, “I understand.” He looks up at her with wide, innocent eyes. “But I don’t really know how to end it and make it sound like it still flows together like a real piece. Everything has to coalesce into one piece of music. It can’t be choppy.” He takes his eyes off of her and glares at his music. “I don’t know what I’m doing with this duet, to be honest.”

“What is it for?” Bailey asks. She catches him off-guard because he struggles to speak for a moment.

“Um…” Ryan stutters. “It’s for the National Composing Competition. I’m hoping to enter the duet section, since I did really well in the soloist section for the past few years. But duets often rack my brain of any coherent thoughts.”

“How well did you do? Don’t be humble and tell me the truth.” Bailey questions. She leaves his side and returns back to the piano to keep practicing and thinking of ideas. 

Ryan rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve won in the section for twelve to sixteen year olds for every year I was eligible.”

Bailey stops playing and stands up in shock. “Really? No way. That’s amazing.”

“Thanks.” It’s the first time since they met that he’s blushed and not Bailey who is blushing. He quickly changes the subject away from him to the piece. “So, any ideas on how to end the piece with a smashing resolution that will make the audience and judges cheer my name for years?” Bailey stares at him dumbfounded. “I’m kidding. But I do need an ending.”

Bailey laughs nervously to take the awkward situation out of her hands. “I’m trying to think.” She fingers a few keys and lightly presses others to create harmonies. “You could play chords really loudly and quickly with a few arpeggios thrown in to really cause a ruckus at the end. It’s the only idea I have.”

He moves over to the piano, his lanky body clumsily waving around. “Try it once for me?”

Bailey hits one chord and raises her eyes to meet his for his approval. Ryan shakes his head at her; his dark brown hair flies all around is head. He nods his approval and Bailey plays more chords that she thinks would fit the song. She plays and plays and gets too carried away with playing for fun before ending with a subdominant, dominant, and tonic chord.

She shakes her head and mutters, “Was that alright?”

“I actually really enjoyed that. All I need to figure out is how to add some arpeggios in there and I think it would work very well. Do you remember the progression you played?” Ryan questions.

“No, but I can replicate it,” Bailey replies. She plays a few chords. “These are the main ones I used.”

Ryan reaches over Bailey’s shoulder to grab his pencil. “Ok, so when you play a measure of chords I really like, please tell me which chords you played, if you don’t mind.”

They work together for about a half hour choosing chords and arpeggios to finish off the piece. Ryan later makes Bailey play with him on the piano while he works on transposing the music for the cello and still have it sound as great as it does on the piano as it does on the cello. Bailey likes the song Ryan composed; she thinks it would be a great piece to perform with a wonderfully talented cellist if she ever had time. She finally remembers that she has to go to the lab today as well as practice for the upcoming recital.

“Ryan, I really have to go,” Bailey says urgently, looking at the clock. “I have somewhere to be soon and I can’t afford to be late.”

Ryan peers up at the clock and sighs. “I do too. Hold on a second. Do you think we can run it once more just to make sure it sounds decent? I can always change the notes around and all, but I don’t want to leave it empty and unfinished for now.

Bailey reaches for the second copy of the sheet music and takes a deep breath. Ryan counts out loud and they begin to play in unison.

She stops thinking about the notes, the dynamics, and the tempo. Instead, she focuses on the emotions she brings to the piece and fully immerses herself in the music. Bailey finally feels happiness and relaxed for the first time in a long while. A smile appears on her face and she lets her heart pour out of the song.

It ends all of sudden and Bailey just wants to keep playing the piece with Ryan. “That was great!” he exclaims. “Thanks for helping me out, Bailey. I appreciate it.”

Bailey walks over to the door. She knows she might forget this moment, but she doesn’t really want to. “You’re welcome, Ryan.” They wave goodbye before Bailey walks across the hallway to the next practice room.

She takes a moment to contemplate what happened before getting down to what she needs to do before heading to the lab and going through the rest of her day.

And slowly, Bailey pushes Ryan out of her head as her head fills with thoughts upon thoughts once more.


	4. Chapter 3

Bailey looks around the bus for an open seat. Faith is behind her and sits down quickly in the first seat with her best friend, Cierra. She looks around and sees Jenna and Lauren in the seventh section of seats. Bailey makes Lauren move in since Jenna’s never a morning person to begin with, and having Bailey crowd next to her would be a terrible idea. She tells them hello and they all stay relatively quiet on the bus ride because no one ever talks on the bus in the morning. Revealing secrets on the morning bus route is most likely the worst option best friends could ever have.

She flicks her long, black hair over her shoulders. Jenna’s checking her makeup in the small mirror she carries around everywhere. Bailey never wears makeup; she finds it a waste of time. She doesn’t need to impress anyone with her looks. Her intelligence should do enough talking for her. Lauren appears ready to fall asleep any second now. 

Winter High School starts school at seven o’clock in the morning, which means almost all students have to get up extremely early to make the bus or get to school on time without getting a detention or teachers yelling at them. They end school at two o’clock in the afternoon because of sports and other extracurricular activities. Days at Winter High School can last for twelve hours or more depending on the sport and activities one participates in. The amount of times Bailey’s spent twelve plus hours at school is cannot be counted anymore. At least this year, Bailey will spending her time at the lab and cannot stay for hours at school working at various clubs.

After Bailey met Ryan, she practiced her piece for approximately two hours in order to get it to the perfection quality she wants to show off to the rest of the performers. She slowly forgot about Ryan, or rather, she put him out of her head in order to focus more on everything she has to do. She disregards his advice about savoring the moment, taking chances, and relaxing. Bailey has accomplishments she needs to reach in order to become the person she desires to be.

Later, after she had lunch at her family’s restaurant, Bailey went over to the state college five miles away via public bus to finish up on her planning work so she could spend a few weeks dedicated to building a computer model to illustrate what she believes would be a fit association that would work well. The graduate students working in same lab have started to be really friendly to Bailey. They talk about their high school life and give advice to Bailey, kind of similar to what Ryan was saying earlier. Many of them tell her to work hard, but not to burn out. She needs to rest at times and be relaxed. It’s the only way she’ll ever make it through high school. Finding a boyfriend wouldn’t be a bad idea either, one of them mentioned. Bailey scoffed at that idea. She has no time for that.

Now is the first day of school and Bailey’s not nervous at all. It’s just another boring school year except she’s working on a scientific research project instead of working at the restaurant again. She shifts and fixes the sleeves on her long-sleeve sky-blue blouse with little white polka dots covering all over it. Her light pink shorts made out similar fabric to khaki make her stand out a bit. She wants to look respectable, especially because of her professional job. She wants to be taken seriously. No sweatpants or casual clothing that would make people wonder if she was even serious about what she loved.

Whatever Bailey loves, she loves. There is never a gray area.

The school bus arrives at the school. Jenna murmurs, “It isn’t even that bright outside yet. The sun literally just came out.” Bailey can tell by her voice that Jenna had a rough practice at gymnastics last night. Jenna spends almost every single day practicing gymnastics because of her level ten status; she could possibly get a division one scholarship to college if the next two years go very well for her. As a result, Jenna spends hours upon hours in the gym like Bailey spends her time in the lab.

Everyone shuffles off the bus and as the students enter the school lobby, the chatter gets louder and louder. Finally, Bailey asks, “How was all of your last week of freedom from school? Since it’s some kind of ritual to never talk to each other that last week because we have to get ready for school and finish up last minute activities, I think we should catch up.”

“Why don’t you go first?” Lauren suggests. “It seems like you have something to tell us.”

Bailey shrugs. Jenna, Lauren, and Bailey all travel together to their locker bank. Somehow, miraculously, the three of them scored lockers in the same area back in freshman year and as a result, always walk to their lockers together like a three person clique. Jenna waves to some cheerleader with a heavy coating of makeup and a boy draped whose arms are draped over her shoulders. Bailey wonders who that is; she doesn’t know most of the people at her school of two thousand students.

“Who was that?” Lauren asks. Lauren’s hair is as black as a raven’s feathers and reaches about the same length as Bailey’s. She twirls around once in her white lace dress and lace crochet flats before continuing along with them.

Jenna sighs and rubs her temples. “Some girl I used to do gymnastics with a few years ago. Her first name’s Eileen, but I can’t recall her last name. She sat next to me in English for three months last year.”

Bailey turns back. Eileen, with hair as golden as the sun, is gone already. Her mouth twitches over to one side and begins to talk about her proposed question. “I spent my last few days at the lab. It was a very rewarding experience to spend with graduate students and my professor. Also, I spent quite a few hours working on the piece I’m playing for the state-wide recital that’s coming up soon. That was also very interesting…” She lets her voice trail off as she gradually remembers everything that happened that one day.

“What happened?” Jenna questions her, still rubbing her temples as they reach their lockers. Bailey checks her schedule for her locker combination and dials it in. She packs her backpack with necessary items for the few periods she has in the morning before her lunch seventh period. Jenna applies more makeup and checks the roots of her newly dyed hair. She spent the second to last day of freedom dying her hair back to her normal dark brown color. Lauren rapidly packs her bags and moves over to Bailey’s side.

Bailey slams her locker door shut and turns the dial to a random number to lock it. “Nothing really happened. I just went to the practice room I usually go to, but there was a guy there who was composing some music.”

Jenna spins on her heels and turns away from her locker to face Bailey. “That was extremely specific, Bails.”

“I didn’t think you needed details.” Before Jenna can say anything, Bailey continues. “He was really nice and I helped him finish up the piece with a strong ending. He knows a lot about music theory. I admire that.”

“You admire him?”

“I didn’t say that, Jenna. I just said I admire his talent and ability to compose very quickly and still have it sound like songs you would listen on repeat for hours and hours without ever stopping for a moment,” Bailey says. “He never seems to write lyrics for his songs though, even when he plays his guitar. All the songs he showed me were just instrumental.”

Jenna closes her locker door and joins Lauren and Bailey at Bailey’s locker. “Well, was he cute? Is he a high school student?”

Bailey rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, careful not to wrinkle her blouse in the process. “I don’t know anything about him except his exceptional talent in music. Don’t even dare trying to set me up with him or anything. It’s not going to happen.” Bailey thinks it’s a wise idea to leave out the fact that she knows Ryan’s name. It would lead to a much worse end result.

“Fine!” Jenna exclaims, throwing her arms in the air. Her burgundy tank top contrasts the body-fitting black miniskirt under her. “Not like I was planning for your love life happiness anyway.” Lauren giggles behind the palm of her freshly manicured hand.

Bailey stalks off to her first period class. She really, really doesn’t like when Jenna teases her about her love life. It isn’t any of her business to butt in. “I’m sorry!” Jenna shouts. The first period bell rings. Everyone in the hallway groans and shrieks. Lauren runs over to Bailey since they share the same first period class.

“I forgive you!” Bailey says back. She wonders if Jenna even heard her as they walk away from each other.

“Bailey, do you think this will be a good year for us?” Lauren asks. She presses her lips as she looks at Bailey, walking with proper posture and exuding confidence. Bailey knows it will be the best year for her. She’s breaking out of her family’s workplace and making a name for herself as an adolescent scientist. Her life couldn’t get any better. She’s living out her dream and the only way it could even get better if she could be nationally recognized for her work and have a secure scientific position. She just wants to learn and communicate with others around the world.

They enter the math classroom, their Advanced Placement Calculus BC class. They take seats next to each other, though they both know quite well that they’ll have to be separated based on last names soon. Then again, Bailey Wang and Lauren Wen never get separated because of last name. “I don’t know,” Bailey admits. “I think it’ll be a rollercoaster of a year, but everything should turn out well in the end. Everything always does. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

Lauren nods and doesn’t say anything else. Bailey contemplates her statement. It’s very hypocritical of her, she realizes after an honest thought. She always ends up worrying about the littlest things. Bailey considers worst-case scenarios for every situation. The year should be interesting for sure, that’s all Bailey can say right off the top of her head without any analysis on everything that culminates into a school year.

Her classes pass by relatively quickly for a first day of school. In some of her harder, core classes, Bailey learns, but in some, she just gets read syllabuses that are similar to the ones she’s read over and over again in the past few years. She has a few classes with Lauren and Jenna, and some with her other friends as well. But it isn’t until she gets to her college level music theory class when she realizes she doesn’t know anyone in that class and she’ll be alone for the first time this school year.

She walks down the music hallway with her head up, trying not to think about where she’ll sit and how she’ll socialize in that class. She takes deep breaths in and out before opening the door to the room. Bailey reminds herself that she can make friends and she’s somewhat sociable. She’ll find someone to sit with and be her partner in the class. She can do it. She’s confident and smart. If she can work in a science lab made for graduate students and science professors with their degrees, she can certainly survive her college level music theory class. Bailey takes one last deep breath. She opens the door with one hard pull. Bailey gasps.

In a seat in the second row in a desk farthest from the door sits Ryan Cai, the same boy who Bailey met at the music studio. He’s feverishly writing something in a notebook and doesn’t notice Bailey gaping at him. Bailey stands at the doorway, staring at him, not believing that he attends Winter High School and she’s never even seen him before until that fateful morning. She gapes at him for a bit too long; someone runs into her. “I’m so sorry!” she apologizes, her voice rising at least an octave. The boy who ran into her shakes his head and goes over to Ryan and they exchange a high-five.

Ryan glances over at the doorway and sees Bailey. His eyes widen in disbelief for a moment. He finally gets over his incredulity and waves her over with his left hand. Bailey takes a second to register that he’s motioning to her. She walks over to him with a big grin on her face. All she can think is that she does have a friend in her music theory class. She won’t be alone. Relief washes over her like a tidal wave. When Bailey arrives to Ryan’s seat, she manages to squeak out a, “Hello!” She attempts to keep her voice at a normal tone. She’s just too happy to see someone she knows. Not to mention she knows a talented musician at that.

Ryan pats the desk next to him, signaling that Bailey should sit next to him. The other boy leaves to go talk to another student in the class, leaving them two alone. “You never told me you went to Winter High School,” Ryan says.

Bailey sits next to him and adjusts the sleeve of her blouse to match the other sleeve. “Well, you didn’t either.”

Ryan’s mouth twitches as if he’s trying to stifle a smile. A grin breaks out and he says, “Fine. You win that one. Are you a senior?”

Bailey, out of nervousness, takes a pen out of her backpack and begins spinning it around her fingers. “No, I’m a junior. I think I’m the only junior taking this class.” Ryan raises eyebrows, impressed with her ability to go straight to the college level music theory class without taking the high school level class first. “Did you skip the high school level class?”

“No, I didn’t get to. I tested out of it, of course, but it didn’t fit in my schedule, so I just took the high school level class first. I kind of treated it as a study hall, but I aced the class anyway.” Ryan shrugs. “The only class since I started high school that I’ve aced without doing anything for.”

“I could imagine,” Bailey says. She taps out a rhythm with her right foot without even noticing. Ryan points it out to her as the bell for sixth period rings. Their teacher comes in, the only music theory teacher in the whole school. He has gray facial hair and is bald; a pencil is stuck behind his ear and his fingers are lengthy, automatically showcasing his affinity for music.

He puts his clipboard down. “I’m Professor Dumenil. Pleased to see all your lovely, happy faces for another year of music theory. I’ve had all of you in the past for the high school level class…” His eyes run down his class roster. Ryan smirks at Bailey. If she knew him well enough already, she would’ve probably playfully hit him. But she’s not that familiar with him, so she keeps her hands to herself. “Bailey Wang?” Bailey shyly raises her hand. “Yes, Bailey Wang. Nice to meet you. We all know each other already because of various classes, but I’m sure you’ll be as lively as this bunch of kids. And you’re sitting next to Ryan Cai. I’m sure you’ll fit in very well.” Ryan rolls his eyes when Professor Dumenil turns his head to the whiteboard.

Bailey has to stifle a laugh. Professor Dumenil doesn’t even have to go through the roster for attendance. He instead hands them all syllabi to read for homework and begins his lecture on theory immediately. Bailey takes out her notebook and takes notes. Ryan also takes notes, but his are less detailed and sloppier than hers. Bailey knows she has some studying for this class ahead of her; she can’t remember everything from this one lesson, let alone what she’ll be learning throughout the whole year. Before the period ends, Professor Dumenil mentions how to apply for college credit for this class and then the bell rings, leaving Bailey to go to lunch and get some work done ahead of her time in the lab.

She exits the room and Ryan follows right behind her. “So, which class do you have next?” He asks in a friendly manner. 

“I have lunch right now,” Bailey says. She has lunch with both Jenna and Lauren this year, so even though she wants to sit and chat with Ryan some more and get to know him, she doesn’t want Jenna and Lauren to make such a big deal out of him. Ryan would get confused and possibly leave Bailey alone. She wants to get to know him; his talent and friendship would never go to waste in her eyes. She crosses her fingers behind her back in hopes of him having lunch at another time.

Ryan’s face scrunches up a little bit. Bailey thinks he looks like an old grumpy cat when his face gets like that. She bites her lip to stifle a laugh caused by her imagination. “I have lunch the period after this one. Such a shame, I suppose. Anyway,” he says as they reach the hallway that separates the school into two different wings, “I’ll see you around then. I think this year will be a great year. Oh, and thanks for helping me out with that piece the other day.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t thank me. It was an honor to work with you,” Bailey says. She gives him a little wave of her hand. Bailey watches as he heads over to the science wing which is cut off from the rest of the school. She sighs and turns around to head to the cafeteria when she sees someone standing right next to her. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaims out of habit. “Wait, Lauren?”

Lauren’s eyes are wide open and big from shock at seeing Bailey and Ryan. She pulls her lace dress down so that the cloth reaches her knees. “Who… who was that, Bailey? I’ve never seen him around before.” Lauren cranes her neck to get a good look at him as he walks up the stairs to his class.

Bailey follows Lauren’s gaze. “He’s just a guy I met in my music theory class. We talked for a while because I don’t know anyone in that class and he seemed pretty friendly. It’s nothing, really.” Bailey doesn’t think of him as anything except an exceptional musician anyway. His talent is one of the few reasons why Bailey attempts to get to know him. “Don’t mention him to Jenna. She’ll make the hugest fuss over him and I don’t want that.”

Lauren nods and finally looks away from Ryan. “We should go to the cafeteria before Jenna arrives and gets mad at us.”

Bailey laughs. “Fine, Lauren. You always have your priorities in order. Let’s go to our lockers first? I don’t think Jenna would mind that.”

They walk to their lockers. Bailey and Lauren discuss their new teachers and how they think their classes will go for the whole year. They also talk about the classes they’re in and their classmates. The day isn’t over, in fact, it’s far from over. The two of them open their lockers and unpack their bags and get ready for the afternoon.

It’s then when Bailey realizes Lauren never said anything about not mentioning Ryan to Jenna. Bailey thinks it’s a bad time to bring him up all of a sudden again, so she keeps her mouth shut as they walk back to the cafeteria. Lauren chats on and on about the activities she plans to try this year as well as her sport, cross country and track and field. Bailey’s one sport she’s decent at is tennis, but she’s not good enough to make the varsity team, so instead, she plays whenever she has free time to stay fit.

They enter in the cafeteria and Jenna waves them over to a table with a few other girls and guys that Jenna knows. “These people aren’t really my friends,” Bailey whispers when she reaches Jenna’s side.

“Not them. We have this side of the table for six. All of them are getting lunch.” She points her hot pink manicured thumb over to the lunch line. “We’re going to sit with Amy, Janet, and Suzanne. Don’t worry about the people over there,” Jenna says, rolling her eyes. “I know you know Amy and Suzanne because they’re in a few of our classes and whatever, and Janet’s on my gymnastics team. She’s really nice and not catty at all. I’m sure we can survive the lunch period.”

“You can, but we can’t,” Lauren says, taking a seat across from Jenna. Bailey sits next to Jenna and opens her lunch box for the leftovers she packed before leaving the house.

Jenna twirls her hair around her finger and then lets it go. “Wow. Laur’s being sassy. That’s the first time in a long time, actually. I never knew you still had it in you.” Lauren turns red and exaggerates her movements in opening her lunch box as a result.

Bailey takes a bite out of her shrimp dumplings and after she swallows, says, “Don’t be mean, Jenna. You know Lauren can have that mean streak when she has a bad day and whatever.” Bailey stuffs a dumpling in her mouth and swivels in her chair to face Lauren. “Did you have a bad day and not tell us?”

Lauren shakes her head and takes a couple of bites out of her sandwich to get away from talking. “Come on,” Jenna declares. “Obviously something happened and you’d better tell us before Amy, Janet, and Suzanne get here.”

Lauren puts her sandwich down and dabs at her mouth with a napkin. “Fine, I’ll tell you. I saw Brody with his arm around another girl. There. Are you guys happy?”

Bailey gasps. Jenna slams her water bottle down on the table. “No,” Jenna mutters. “Really? But you guys dated for a year and a half… you would think he would’ve taken longer to get over you.”

Lauren lets out a deep breath and props her head up on the table using her elbow. “Yeah, I’m the one who broke up with him, so it shouldn’t matter to me, right? It’s just kind of strange that he moved on so quickly. I’ll be fine by tomorrow, I promise.” She smiles and her eyes surprisingly don’t have tears in them. “Don’t mind me.” Someone takes a seat next to Bailey and she almost jumps with amazement.

“Oh, hi, Amy,” Bailey says before eating another bite of her dumpling.

This year is definitely going to be interesting.

********  
Bailey takes the earphones out of her ears and pauses the Chinese pop music on her phone. The electronic sign on the bus reads, “Next stop: University of Connecticut.” As the bus stops, Bailey stands up and holds on to the rail for balance. She hops down the steps and tries to avoid everyone getting on and off the bus at the busiest, main bus stop at the state university. She looks around and takes a moment to view her surroundings before heading to the lab. The leaves are going to be changing colors soon, but for now, they are a vibrant, lively green. Students all walk around with a definitive air about them; they’ve been in school for less than a month, but for long enough to feel at home in the university already. No one gives Bailey a weird look. She fits in, miraculously. Bailey takes a deep breath and proceeds on her route to the linguistics lab to set up her project for the first time.

The walk isn’t long to the lab. A breeze blows by, cooling Bailey’s skin. Along the way, she takes deep breaths and plans out her workload that she has to start as soon as she gets home. Maybe she’ll spend some time at the restaurant since it’s the first day of school and the homework hasn’t piled up yet.

She involuntarily looks for Amelia as she walks around campus. Amelia knows Bailey’s going to the lab today and Bailey wishes she would stop by and say hello, even for just one minute. One minute with Amelia is better than none at all.

Bailey hears, “Bailey Wang!” being shouted across the campus quad. Bailey turns around to see Amelia, with her dark brown hair flying all around her, running towards Bailey in flats and a casual red dress. “Bailey!” Amelia shouts again. Bailey runs over to Amelia and they meet halfway. Bailey throws her arms around Amelia and Amelia sways the two of them back and forth for a moment before letting go to take a look at her.

“Wow, your fashion sense really improved,” Amelia says in awe as she scrutinizes her sister. “I really love those shorts. You’ll let me borrow them one day, right? Maybe I’ll wear them to Nick’s party tomorrow night…” Amelia takes a look at Bailey’s face and laughs. “I’m kidding, Bailey. I don’t think I would even fit in those shorts. But you look really great.”

“Thanks, Amelia,” Bailey says. “I want to be taken seriously when I’m in the lab, so that means I really need to try hard to dress appropriately and modestly.”

Amelia pinches Bailey’s cheeks. “That’s a good girl. I’m glad you’re my sister.” Amelia smiles and checks her cell phone. “Oh whoa, I’m running late to class. I’ll see you around, Bailey!” They embrace once more and Bailey waves to Amelia as Amelia sprints down the quad to the other side of campus to get to class. Bailey giggles by herself as she watches Amelia run in a dress and flats. When Amelia is out of sight, Bailey keeps on walking to the lab.

No one says hello to Bailey. All the college students either walk by themselves with their earphones in, walking casually to class, or they have a group of friends and they all talk loudly with each other, making people envy them and wonder who they are. Bailey wonders what kind of college student she’ll be when she gets to college. She enjoys her privacy, yes, but she wants to have some semblance of a social life when she goes to college. College life will be very different from her high school life, Bailey is sure of this.

Bailey reaches the linguistics building and takes the four flights of stairs to the top floor of the building where she’ll be working. She slides the key card into the slot of the lab she works in and the door automatically opens for her to enter in. “Hello?” she calls out, hoping someone is in here so she can at least be supervised. She doesn’t trust herself being in the lab by herself just yet.

“Hi!” Someone replies. The individual comes out. “Oh, hey, you’re Professor Yoo’s high school student.” She extends her hand out to Bailey. “She had to go run out for something.” Bailey shakes the college student’s hand firmly. “I’m Joyce Yoo and no, Professor Yoo and I are not related in any way, shape, or form. She told me that you’d be coming in soon.” Joyce leaves the room for a moment and comes back with a white lab coat. “This is yours. You don’t get your name embroidered on it, unfortunately, but you can use this while you’re in the lab. Just leave it in the lab at all times in case you forget it or something.” Bailey admires Joyce’s bright pink lipstick and long, mascara-decorated eyelashes. She definitely has makeup on and it’s evident, but there’s something about Joyce that makes Bailey think she looks like a model regardless of makeup. “I’m supposed to get you started.”

“Ok,” Bailey says as she puts on the lab coat. Her heart is pounding quickly with excitement of finally starting her research project.

Joyce ushers Bailey to a computer. “This is your workstation while you’re in the lab.” Bailey takes a good look at the clean, pristine computer. “All the programs are downloaded to help with Java, C plus plus, as well as Python for all your computer programming needs. Professor Yoo’s hoping you can start writing the model today, but just get done what you can get done. Don’t worry about everything too much. It’ll all work out.” Joyce smiles at Bailey and pulls out the chair for Bailey to sit in.

“So I just use this computer whenever I come in?” Bailey asks before Joyce can leave.

“Yeah,” Joyce says. “This one right where you’re sitting. You don’t have to ask anyone if you can use it; it’s basically yours until you leave the lab. If you have any questions, I’m in the room right next door!” Joyce gallops out of the room, leaving Bailey to her own devices.

Bailey takes a deep breath and opens the Java interpreter. Here goes, she thinks to herself. It’s her opportunity to start her project. She clicks the icon on the screen and it pops up in front of her. Bailey’s dream is being envisioned right in front of her eyes.

She takes out her notebook out of her backpack and begins to write the code she thinks she’ll be using on a piece of paper. Bailey opens a syntax webpage to make sure everything goes according to plan. She begins to type away, all the while making sure everything is working the way she wants it to. Her fingers fly across the keyboard. She doesn’t take a break until she finishes a set of arrays that she thinks she’ll need for the future building of the computer model.

Bailey leans back in her chair and rubs her wrists while the model runs and outputs the correct information. A smile develops on her face and she turns her head to the right to see Professor Yoo standing right next to her. “Oh, I didn’t notice you were here!” Bailey exclaims. She stands up so she and Professor Yoo are on the same level.

Professor Yoo chuckles. “It happens to the best of my students. Don’t worry about it. It’s just nice to see you happy and satisfied with your work. Sometimes I wonder how many kids in the upcoming generation want to work.” She turns to the computer screen and begins to read the model. “You’re really professional at programming. It seems you really understand the language without even needing a full translator to write one line.” She pushes enter on the keyboard and the model runs again.

Bailey crosses her arms over her chest and the model spits out correct output after correct output. “I just like learning languages, that’s all, really.”

The model finishes at the end and Professor Yoo takes her eyes off the screen to look at Bailey. “Your talent is unparalleled. What languages can you speak? I forgot.”

Bailey sits back down at the computer and saves her work before the computer can delete it. “I can speak English, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Korean, and am learning French at school. After I finish this project, I want to try learning Japanese or Spanish.”

“Wow, that’s great!” Professor Yoo cries out. “Many of my students don’t even know that many languages. You’ll have to help them out sometimes. Well, whenever they’re doing a project on a language they don’t know, at least you’ll try, right?”

Bailey smiles weakly. “Yeah, I mean, I’ll try.” She pulls her lab coat closer into her body.

Professor Yoo pats Bailey on the back. “Awesome. Well, I won’t keep disturbing you. I’m leaving in about an hour, so I don’t know if anyone will be in the lab after I leave.” Professor Yoo and Bailey both look at the clock up on the wall.

“I’ll leave when you do,” Bailey says reluctantly. She begins writing another array for a different output that varies slightly from the first one she wrote earlier.

Professor Yoo nods and leaves Bailey alone. Bailey sighs and puts her head down on the desk. Just thinking about the amount of work she has to do in the next few months stresses her out to the point that her head hurts with just the slightest noise. She stays in this position for a few minutes, then tilts her head up and begins to write more code.

Bailey types until she notices that an hour has passed. She logs off of the computer and puts her lab coat away. Her dream is very tedious, but she doesn’t mind at all. Bailey wants to work to become the best. She cleans up her lab station and pops her head in Professor Yoo’s office to say goodbye. “Professor Yoo, I’m going to go now. I just wanted to let you know. Have a great night.” Professor Yoo looks up from a stack of papers and rubs her eyes.

“Alright, thanks for letting me know, Bailey. Is there anyone else still in the lab?” Professor Yoo asks.

Bailey shakes her head. “No, I’m the last one.” Professor Yoo waves at Bailey, signaling that Bailey could leave. Bailey closes the door behind her and runs down the stairs in order to catch the bus. The bus is about to leave the stop, but Bailey chases it down so she can get on and not wait another fifteen minutes for the next one.

There are plenty of people on the bus, so Bailey stands next to the door and hangs on to the railing. There aren’t any familiar faces, so she doesn’t talk. Instead, she thinks about what happened this day and how she can improve her computer model to make it more concise and precise. She also contemplates whether she should go to the restaurant and help out with the family business or just go straight directly home and get homework done. She decides, after a few minutes of thinking, that she’ll go help at the restaurant since she doesn’t have a heavy workload yet.

She gets off at the Main Street stop and begins to walk to the restaurant. The sun hasn’t set yet; it’s still bright and vibrant outside. Kids are outside playing on the sidewalk, finished with their first day of school. Parents are out eating and shopping or supervising their children. They’re all chatting about how their children acted at school or how lonely the home was without them. Bailey sighs; her parents aren’t like that at all. Her family is close with the Chinese community, yes, but none of them talk about how lonely their home is without the children. It’s far from it, in fact. Her parents aren’t at home enough to even wonder what life is like without their children. Bailey’s always wondered what her parents would do if one of the children just never came home.

She passes wonderful smells and beautiful sights, but ends up where she needs to be: the family restaurant. She takes in a deep breath, knowing how busy she’ll be on her feet when she enters in. Bailey mentally readies herself for the time she’ll be spending in the restaurant instead of studying and opens the door to a packed restaurant and everyone running around, frazzled and overworked. She sees her eleven year old brother and nine year old sister washing the dishes while Faith is waitressing. Her mother is working the cash register and her father is cooking, of course. There are two other waiters who are Chinese speaking college students. Bailey nods hello to them and walks over to her mother.

The lights are dim and Chinese-style lanterns hang above the customers’ heads. It’s a buffet, but the amount of waiters and waitresses still needs to be the same as any other restaurant. “Ni hao, Mama!” Bailey says, trying to keep her voice as chipper as possible. Bailey never speaks English with her mother; she finds it a nuisance to get her mother to understand her English. “What do you want me to do?” she asks in her native Mandarin Chinese.

Her mother gives Bailey a smile and punches some numbers into a calculator. “Go waitress with your sister.” Bailey’s parents never speak English with Bailey either. “Take an apron and a receipt book and go serve people.” Her mother finally looks up to see Bailey. “Oh, I don’t want you to get your clothes dirty. Go and change into the spare black pants and white shirt I have in the women’s restroom closet. Please work hard today. Don’t socialize too much with the customers.” Bailey nods and takes her supplies to the restroom.

She changes quickly, but spends some time looking into the mirror. Bailey already spots dark circles under her eyes. She sighs and puts her receipt book and pen in her back pocket and exits the restroom. Her mother waves her over to a table and Bailey asks, “Hello! I’m Bailey, your waitress, today. What drinks would you like to have?” The three customers promptly tell her and she writes them down and goes to the drink fountain to fill glasses with the drinks.

She walks over to the drink fountain where Faith is filling up a glass with soda. “Bailey! You’re working today too? I thought you’d just go directly home after work.” Faith is sweating and her hair is pulled into a high ponytail. Bailey remembers that Faith had cheerleading practice this afternoon. They sacrifice so much for their family’s business, Bailey realizes. Faith could be resting and working on homework, but instead, she’s staying on her feet for at least two more hours serving others drinks and cleaning up.

“I thought I’d come and help you guys. There’s always a lot of work to do at the restaurant and I know we’re never ahead of the game. Isn’t it better when there are more hands to help out?” Bailey asks as Faith finishes filling up her last glass.

“It is,” Faith admits. “Thanks for coming, Bailey. Cheerleading practice was especially tough today.”

“Go home?” Bailey suggests as she begins filling up her glasses for her customers.

Faith takes out her ponytail and begins to redo it. Her dark brown hair flows down her shoulders, but she puts it up as rapidly as she took her ponytail out. Bailey glances at Faith; she has this cute, squishy baby face that everyone seems to fall for. “I can’t leave Mom and Dad like this. They work so hard and it pains me to see them bogged down with work. I want to help. Besides, I don’t have much work to do tonight besides working in the restaurant.”

“I feel the same way,” Bailey sighs. “Faith, you’d better deliver your drinks before Mom finds out you haven’t yet and gets mad.” Bailey fills up the last of her glasses and puts the drinks on a tray. “We can go together.” Faith nods and they leave the drink station to greet their customers.

Faith and Bailey separate to their different tables. The customers thank Faith and Bailey and they move on to their next set of customers. Once the business slows down, Bailey goes over to Celine, who is still busy washing dishes. “Hey, Celine,” Bailey says. Celine looks up from her soap and dishes and smiles at her older sister. “How was your first day of school?”

“It was fun. My friends and I had a nice time. I’m excited to learn,” Celine says. She stops scrubbing a plate for a moment until she sees her mother glaring at the two of them. “Bailey, you should probably go. Mom saw us talking.” Her little face is similar to Faith’s in that it’s chubby and sweet; she’s very cute and funny as an individual.

Bailey sighs and grabs a couple of clean plates to set a table with. “We’ll continue this conversation later, yes, Celine?” Celine nods, a grin spreading across her face. Bailey waves at Celine and goes to set the table. David is behind Celine, still working hard and scrubbing utensil after utensil.

The restaurant stays busy until closing time. Bailey sweeps up the floor and everyone has a specific job to do. It’s already nine at night and Bailey knows she’ll be up for at least a few more hours doing homework. In the car on the way back home, David and Celine talk and talk about their days at school. Faith falls asleep on Bailey’s shoulder and Bailey goes through the events of the day.

This year is going to be interesting.


	5. Chapter 4

Bailey’s school life gets busier and busier; it doesn’t help that the restaurant has gotten increasingly positive reviews these past few weeks. She often ends up sleeping only three to four hours every night, excluding weekends. The stress is taking a toll on her, but does her best to keep a strong impression no matter what. She helps lead the math team, Science Olympiad, and computer science club while working two different jobs and keeping up with her best friends. Jenna and Lauren are busy too, and Lauren wants to get a job at the Wang’s restaurant once the play ends in December. Bailey wishes December could come sooner.

Then again, in December comes the time when Bailey will be virtually done with her project and will just need to submit it for review to the competition. She knows she’ll be sad to see her time at the lab go. Even if Bailey wants to collapse from all the stress and pressure at the lab, she loves it there. She adores her co-workers, the graduate students, and enjoys the company of Professor Yoo. She couldn’t be any happier with her situation at the moment, but she still is scared for her future.

Bailey doesn’t sleep often throughout the day. The amount of work she has looming over her head leaves her no time to procrastinate, nevertheless rest her head for a moment. No one in her family really worries about her though. They all have their own problems.

She’s not going to the lab today because it’s the day before the recital. Bailey has the opportunity to use the school’s piano in the orchestra room and get some practicing in before the big showcase performance. Everything seems to be in order, but Bailey doesn’t want to take any chances with her piece. Lauren and Jenna both listened to her play it and they said it sounded fine to them; there weren’t any major errors they picked up on. Then again, the audience at the recital will be musically educated, so Jenna and Lauren will not be much help in terms of critiques.

Soon, Bailey’s model will be fully complete and she’ll have to go out find people that play musical instruments and speak multiple languages. She doesn’t think it will be much of a challenge; many people in the area speak Chinese or another language, as well as play an instrument. She’ll need to obtain data from all ages, as well as people who speak various languages, which will be the hardest part for sure. Her parents don’t have much of a social life outside of the Chinese community, so she has no direct relations.

The bell rings to signify the end of the school and people rush out of the physics class, all eager to fill their day with their various activities. Bailey waves goodbye to a few of her closer friends and makes her way over to the orchestra room. It’s a Friday afternoon, so she doesn’t expect anyone to be occupying the piano after school for practice. She puts her ear next to the door and doesn’t hear any sounds coming from the piano, so she eagerly opens the door and walks in.

Ryan sits at the piano with a guitar in his lap. He’s writing something down on a sheet of paper. Bailey almost turns to leave, but the door creaking behind her gives her away. Ryan looks up with a puzzled look and his eyebrows furrowed. It takes him a second to register who Bailey is, and when he does, his eyes light up a little with the knowledge of familiarity. “Hey, Bailey!” He puts the pencil down and waves at her. “Why do we always meet up like this?”

Bailey shrugs. She doesn’t move any closer to him; she doesn’t want to be stuck talking to him for hours when she has more important things to get done. People are important, but Bailey can talk to Ryan any day. “This is such a coincidence. I need to practice for my recital and I honestly have to go.” Bailey checks the wall clock on the opposite wall. “Oh, I missed the bus.” She sighs. “We can totally talk later, but really, I need to go find a spare piano and get some practicing in. I even skipped working at the lab for this.”

While she rambles on, Ryan stands up and walks to her side. “You, Bailey, need to slow down and pause and reflect. Take time to just realize that your life is not based on how well you perform. Yes, practice is important, but aren’t relationships you build with people even more imperative?”

Bailey looks back at the clock. “They are, but I really need to practice, Ryan.”

Ryan laughs and leaves her side. He takes his papers off the piano and moves his guitar to a spare chair. “Come on, then. You can practice and I won’t bother you, unless you get upset when I play guitar chords.” Bailey shakes her head. She still hasn’t moved from her original position at the door. “I’ll just be playing a few chords for this piece I’m working on. And you can use the piano. I might critique you, but only if you want me to.” His face turns red. “I haven’t talked this much in a while.”

Bailey places her backpack on a chair and rubs her hands together to warm them up. “Really? You don’t mind?”

He places a chord on his guitar. “Well, I gave you the piano to use, so no; I don’t mind the slightest bit.” Ryan writes down another set of chords on his paper and begins stringing them together.

Bailey takes in a deep breath and warms up with all the scales and arpeggios she can remember. She tries not to focus on the fact that Ryan, an almost professional musician, is right next to her and can hear every note she plays, correctly or incorrectly. Her hands feel warmer now, but she still doesn’t feel completely adequate with her situation. Bailey closes her eyes and thinks of how the piece should flow out of her hands and into the ears of her audience.

Ryan keeps on playing his piece, so Bailey decides that this is her time to play before he actually starts getting interested in her piano playing. She plays with as much emotion and feeling as she can pour into a piece. Bailey drives the piece hard in order to get it to the full potential. At the end, she’s so tired from working her fingers so hard. She wonders if it even sounded decent. She looks up from the piano and sees Ryan with a neutral expression on his face. “Were you listening?” she asks.

He nods. Bailey looks back down at the keys and begins to play from the beginning. Ryan stops her with a few words. “Bailey! Try playing in a more relaxed way. Let the music flow out naturally. You don’t need to push it. You know the piece inside and out already.”

Bailey brushes her hair back behind her shoulders and tries again from the beginning. She plays the whole piece while not thinking about the notes. She thinks more about dynamics and tempo; she doesn’t want to play as fast as her heart is racing. Playing in front of people besides her family scares her to her breaking point. Bailey never admits it to anyone, of course.

She finishes the piece and glances over at Ryan for approval. He gives her a thumb up sign. “That sounded much better,” he praises Bailey. “However, I still don’t feel like you’re really enjoying yourself. A piece played with flawless technique is amazing, but with emotion, is even better.” He sits down next to her. “Let’s see if I can make that more understandable.”

Bailey scoots over to the edge of the piano bench so Ryan can reach his maximum range when playing. He takes in a deep breath, then plays. Everything is there in the piece, yes, Bailey realizes, but there’s no emotion. His technique is impeccable, but she can’t enjoy it fully. He feels cold and emotionless. There are no nuances to make the piece sound even better than it does. Bailey wants to reach over and play the piece with more feeling and emotion than he is right now. Her fingers itch to touch the keys of the piano and play.

Ryan finishes playing and turns to her, his dark brown eyes squinting a little bit. “Do you understand now?” Bailey nods. She tugs on the hem of her black circle skirt and Ryan moves to the edge so Bailey can play.

She takes a minute to just envision how the song should sound when played with great technique and no emotion and then she takes another to hear how the song should sound with the right blend of emotion and technique. Ryan taps with the beat with his foot. Bailey begins to play. She doesn’t think about the notes, dynamics, tempo, or anything related to her playing. Bailey just imagines a happy, childhood situation and her piece turns nostalgic. When it gets to the louder sections, Bailey reflects on a time when she was angry and her playing grows louder and more intense. By the ending, she is so full of memories and emotions. She ends and breathes in and out to calm herself down.

Ryan’s standing up and applauding her. “That was amazing, Bailey. That’s the best I’ve ever heard you play and I mean it. You’re going to blow everyone else out of the water if you play just like that when your recital comes around.”

Bailey grins and takes a chance by asking him, “Would you like to come to the recital? I think you would enjoy it… You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It was just a suggestion.” Even if she doesn’t know Ryan very well, she wholeheartedly believes he would love the opportunity to hear musicians play. Also, if he comes, he would fuel Bailey to play as best as she could possibly play so she can impress him, one of the best musicians she’s ever met in her whole life.

He leaves the piano bench and walks around the room. His right hand cups his chin as he contemplates. He takes a lap around the whole orchestra room before coming back to Bailey and the piano. “Yes, I’d like to go.” Ryan takes out his cell phone and hands her his phone. “Can you give me your number and write down when and where it is?” Bailey nods and inputs her information into his phone. “Thanks. I’ll do my best to be there.”

“Thanks,” Bailey says. “I think I’m going to practice a few more times, if you don’t mind me hogging the piano for longer.”

Ryan shakes his head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. Focus on your recital piece. I’ll be playing my guitar and figuring out some more melodies and harmonies in the back. If you need anything, just call me over.” Bailey nods and Ryan leaves the piano to go back to the guitar.

Bailey rubs her hands against each other and runs through a few more scales to warm up her hands again. After she goes through her scales, Bailey imagines a few moments in her head that she can use while she plays the waltz. Her fingers lightly press against the piano as she thinks about the memories, some she will never want to forget and some that she wants to forget but never will.

After she spends time going through her memories, Bailey begins to play. She feels herself leaving the piano and feeling the emotion as she remembers everything happy and sad in her life. She forgets all about notes, tempo, dynamics, pedals, and even the fact that Ryan’s still near her. She plays and plays the waltz over and over again while still going through the ups and downs of her life. She practices until she can’t feel her fingers and they trip over each other and the amount of wrong notes she plays counters every single right one that follows.

Bailey looks up at the clock and notices that an hour and a half has already passed. She gasps and pushes herself off the piano bench. “Ryan! I’m so sorry that I spent so long on the piano. Time got away from me. You can have the piano now.”

Ryan strums a few strings and chuckles shyly. “It’s fine. You play really well when you let go of time and all your restraints.” Bailey blushes and lowers her head to the ground. “Anyway, I’m not getting any more good ideas.” They stand in silence until Ryan clears his throat and says, “Since you’re not practicing any longer, do you want to go out and do something?”

Bailey’s eyebrows rise. Her gaze doesn’t lift up from the ground. “What… what do you mean?” She knows she has a lot of work to do at home and at the restaurant, but she does want to hang out with Ryan as well. Maybe she should just put everything off and allow herself to make new friendships.

“I know of a great bubble tea place in the next town over,” Ryan admits. He begins to put his guitar away. “You’ve probably been multiple times, but I’m in the mood for bubble tea now. So do you want to come with me? We’ll have to take the bus.”

Bailey attempts to weigh the pros and cons in her head, but her head just hurts thinking about it. She bites her lip before saying, “Yeah, let’s go.” A grin develops on Ryan’s face. She hoists her backpack over her shoulder and they exit the orchestra room together. 

They walk to the bus stop and talk about frivolous things, like what they plan to do for Halloween or how their friends are. Bailey learns that Ryan doesn’t have many friends at school; he’s too quiet and not social to make friends. He’s surprised to even have spent time talking to Bailey in the first place. He learns that Bailey spends most of her time with either Jenna, Lauren, or her family members.

Ryan leans on a pole that has the county bus schedule. Bailey realizes that he’s much taller than her; he towers her by at least fifteen centimeters. “So, your family owns the Chinese buffet in Winter?” he asks. Bailey gets caught off-guard, so it takes her a moment to recollect herself before nodding. “No wonder you’re so busy. The buffet always is filled with people.”

“Yeah,” Bailey says absent-mindedly. “Actually, when you mentioned that the crab legs were great at the restaurant, you almost made me cry.” She wants to stop herself from rambling about that embarrassing moment, but she can’t stop. “My family works so hard, but no one seems to recognize it. We try to make everyone happy with our food and service, but most of the time, people treat as if we’re barely anything.” Her hands clench into fists before she can realize that they are in fists. Tears well up in Bailey’s eyes. “I don’t want in the same situation as my parents. They work so hard for everyone, but nothing really good has come out of it.”

Ryan rubs her shoulder. “I understand. My mom is a housekeeper for the mayor’s family. I can’t even say their last name without feeling upset. And my dad does odd jobs around the town, whatever he can find before getting fired again. That’s why I teach music lessons so I can make some money and pay for my own music lessons. I need a scholarship for college, because there’s no way my parents can continue paying for college for my older brother and still stay afloat when my younger sister and I come along.”

Bailey sighs and looks out to the road, wondering if the bus will come any time soon. “So, we’re in similar situations then.”

Ryan takes his weight off of the pole when the bus pulls up the curb to drop off and pick up customers. “I suppose we are.” They get on the bus and there’s only one seat. Ryan gets on the bus first, but he allows Bailey to take the seat. Now she really feels an affinity with Ryan; they both aren’t very rich or live in luxury. In fact, both of their families are struggling to stay afloat. She feels like she can trust him with more now. Jenna and Lauren both are middle-class families; they don’t make a lot of money, but they don’t worry too much about monetary expenses either. She’s yet to really meet and interact with someone at the same status as she is.

Ryan inches closer to her while she’s sits in the seat. She whispers in his ear, “Why are you getting so close to me?”

He looks around at the people on the bus. A few middle-aged men are staring over at Bailey and one wiggles his eyebrows over in their direction. “Don’t you see them?” he hisses back. “I don’t want people ogling you and thinking about you in that kind of way. You already have enough to worry about.” Bailey follows his gaze and moves closer to the edge of the seat to get closer to Ryan.

“Oh, thanks.” She puts the men out of her head and begins to think of what order she should do her homework in. Ryan and Bailey stay pressed together until their stop comes and they leave the bus. “That was strange,” Bailey says as she fixes her long, black hair.

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. They stand at the bus stop for a moment before Ryan continues with his statement. “Well, let’s go to the bubble tea shop then.” Bailey nods back and they walk together on the main street of the town to the small shop Ryan loves to drink at. As they walk, Bailey realizes that Ryan really doesn’t talk that much unless they speak about music. He is someone who acts, not speaks.

The two of them stay silent as they walk through the town’s downtown district. It isn’t much different from Winter’s downtown; there are parents talking and supervising their children, and shopkeepers are trying to attract townspeople to their shops. Bailey smiles at the unfamiliar faces. Even if this town is just one over from Winter, she doesn’t recognize anyone familiar. The only times she ever really leaves Winter is to visit her older brothers and sister or to go to the lab. Leaves are morphing into autumnal colors and some fall down. Bailey tilts her head to the bright blue sky and silently enjoys the fall weather.

A wind blows through the street. Bailey doesn’t have a jacket; she didn’t think the wind would be this blustery. She hugs her arms closer to her chest. Ryan, who is walking a few feet in front of her, abruptly stops. “Here we are.” Bailey reads the sign and confirms it. “Do you want to sit outside or inside?”

“Whatever you want,” Bailey says nonchalantly, though she thinks in her head that she really, really desires to stay inside and feel warm. Ryan seems to notice this and leads her into the shop. He allows her to order first. Bailey takes a second to look at the menu before saying, “Hello, I’d like a small mango bubble tea, please.” The lady at the counter nods and rings Bailey up.

“You’ll have to wait a minute,” the lady tells her. Bailey acknowledges this and moves near the door to allow Ryan to order. Ryan orders a medium taro bubble tea. The lady hands the drinks to them at the same time. “Have a nice night,” she says.

“You too,” Bailey replies. Ryan repeats Bailey’s words and they sit down at the one table in the shop. The lady at the counter leaves the counter, leaving Ryan and Bailey alone in the front of the shop.

Bailey inserts her thick, green straw into her mango bubble tea and takes a sip. It tastes heavenly; it has the right amount blended of mango and tea, not to mention a healthy ratio of boba bubbles. “This bubble tea is amazing,” she says as she finishes her first sip of the tea. “It has everything I could ever imagine in one drink.”

Ryan gulps down half of his taro bubble tea before speaking. “Yeah, I absolutely love coming here. Whenever I have spare change, I just come here, drink bubble tea, and ponder about life and everything in general.”

Bailey keeps on drinking the mango-flavored ambrosia. “Have you ever brought anyone here? I think this is somewhat like your quiet place…”

“I mean, my family has come a few times with me. But otherwise, no, no one’s come with me to drink bubble tea here. I attempt to have this place as my own sanctuary.” Ryan sucks a boba bubble through his thick straw, not noticing that Bailey’s stopped drinking and is staring at him with a strange look in her eyes. He sips and sips until he reaches the bottom of the plastic cup. “What?”

Bailey shakes her head. “It’s nothing, really.” Ryan doesn’t take his eyes off of her as she drinks more of her mango tea. She puts her bubble tea down. “Fine, I’ll say it. Why’d you bring me here if you want to keep this place all to yourself?”

He reaches for her bubble tea; she swats his hand away from the straw. “It’s because I think you need your own spot to just think and be pensive. I don’t think you have anywhere where you can do that. You seem to be forever preoccupied with everything going on around you, and it seems like music isn’t going to help you not be so worried. So I thought this would be the right place for you. Bubble tea that’s out of this world, no one to bother you, and nice scenery.” He opens his hand to show off the view. “You never have to come back, but I thought it would be nice.”

Bailey finishes her tea and begins to suck in the boba bubbles with her straw. “No, I do like it here. It’s tranquil, but I just don’t have the time to do this.” Out of awkwardness, Bailey pulls on her black circle skirt to cover up as much leg skin as possible.

“You’re here right now,” Ryan says before he gets up to throw away his plastic cup. “So you do have time.”

“It’s only because I didn’t go to the lab,” she says, exasperated with the whole situation unfolding. “Otherwise, I would spend my whole afternoon there. I don’t have time for this, as much as I do enjoy time off from everything else going on in my life.”

Ryan crosses his arms over his chest. Bailey glares at him. She debates leaving for the bus, but decides to stay. “You’re not the only one who’s extremely busy.”

It takes a long time for Bailey to regain composure. She knows she’s not the only one that’s busy with life in general, but some people aren’t as busy as she is, for sure. And Bailey doesn’t know how to make it all look effortless with everything going on. “I know we’re all busy and caught up with our lives, but I don’t know how to make this all look nature and normal, ok? Call me inefficient or whatever you want, but I’m busy and don’t have time for this. I don’t know how to relax, I admit it. But don’t put me down because of that.” With that, Bailey throws away her empty bubble tea cup and runs as fast as she can in her flats to the bus stop.

She reaches the bus stop about a mile away from the bubble tea shop and has to catch her breath at the pole. Bailey checks the bus schedule; a bus doesn’t come to the stop for another ten minutes. She doesn’t know if she can hold out that long. She doesn’t even remember a time when she’s gotten this angry in a long time. Bailey likes to keep everything hidden inside her, but she knows this, her parents have told her many times, that she has the tendency to explode as a result.

She hears footsteps follow behind her. Bailey doesn’t find it a big deal; there are quite a few people living in the town who need to take public transportation. She turns away from the bus schedule and sits on the bench with the plastic overhead to keep the rain from hitting the bench. The sky is gray and tumultuous. Bailey thinks it’ll rain soon. She sighs. She should’ve been more prepared for the weather.

The person whose footsteps she heard earlier sits down next to her. Bailey doesn’t look over at the person. She’s still reeling somewhat from the situation. “I’m sorry,” she hears from a voice that she slightly recalls. Bailey finally gives up and whips her head around to see who it is. Her eyes open as wide as they can and her jaw drops a slight bit. Ryan’s sitting next to her, albeit keeping a far distance away from her. Bailey never thought in a million years that he would’ve ever come back for her. She’s still upset, yes, but she’s more surprised than mad at this point.

“Why’d you follow me here?” she asks.

Ryan inches a little closer, but Bailey moves farther back on the bench. “It’s because I wanted to know if you were alright. I’m really sorry. Also, I kind of need to go home on the bus too.” Bailey thinks about his points. It’s nice of him to be apologetic for his actions. And Bailey realizes that she should be apologizing too. She shouldn’t have gotten so angry like that.

“I’m sorry too,” Bailey whispers. Ryan leans in closer because he didn’t hear her, and this time, Bailey doesn’t move away from him. “I said, I’m sorry for lashing out at you. It was disrespectful of me.”

Ryan sticks his hand out. Bailey can’t help admire his long fingers that seem to be hand-crafted just for piano. She grabs his hand and notices how small it is compared to his. “So are we friends again?” Ryan asks as they shake hands. Bailey never really called Ryan a friend before, but she doesn’t think she minds the label anymore.

“Yeah,” Bailey agrees. She says under her breath, “I never knew we were even friends in the first place.” The bus pulls to the curb and people get off.

“Did you say something?” Ryan questions as both of them leave the bench and walk over to the bus. There isn’t anyone on the bus except for them now that many of the customers had gotten off the bus and rush hour is over. The sky is turning dark and it’s getting harder to see outside without putting eyes directly next to the window. Bailey contemplates working late at the restaurant again tonight or to just stay home and feign that she arrived late from school or something like that.

Bailey shakes her head and holds on to the railing. She looks out the window and watches the people in downtown leave for their homes as night falls upon the streets. She wonders if Jenna or Lauren would be up for a sleepover some time soon. Jenna has her gymnastics season starting and her own individual season revving up as well. Lauren is in the winter play and her rehearsals have gotten hectic for now. They’ve all gotten so busy so quickly and Bailey doesn’t know how to react to it.

Amelia hasn’t been home since that beautiful summer day. Bailey misses seeing her face all the time, but she has gone with Amelia to eat twice in the past month after Bailey finished her lab work for that day. Howie, who’s in medical school at the moment, rarely ever comes home either. When he’s not at school, he works to pay the bills. Bailey misses him for sure. The only sibling in college who comes home at least once a month is Scott. He’s in graduate school to become a history professor, but he spends a lot of time at home working in the restaurant or just stopping to say hello. Bailey loves how Scott stays so filial, even with other relationships that take him away sometimes.

The bus stops at the one stop in between the town over and Winter. Ryan takes out his cell phone and punches some buttons before putting his phone away. Bailey sighs. She wonders what it is like to always be a texting person or having relationships aside from her family ones and her friendships with Jenna and Lauren, or even her work relationships at the lab. Then again, Ryan said he didn’t have many friends. Bailey reflects on how that can be possible.

“Hey, Ryan?” she asks. Ryan takes his eyes off of the passing scenery and stares at Bailey. Bailey all of a sudden, feels bare, but she remembers that she and Ryan are now friends. She has nothing to worry about. She should be herself and be amicable.

“Yeah?” he replies.

Bailey leans on the nearest pole and hangs on the railing. The bus stop is about to come and she doesn’t want to wait to ask him the question. “You said yourself that you don’t have many friends…” she realizes in the middle of asking that butting in like this isn’t approved of by anyone. She’d just make her new friendship even more awkward than it is already. To ask a question like this is uncalled for, but she’s already started and can’t stop herself anymore. “Why is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Ryan’s usual perfect posture slumps down a little bit. “Do you really want to know?” he retaliates. Bailey’s a bit stunned by his sharp gaze, yet she can only nod.

“Fine,” he says. Ryan runs his fingers through his hair before starting. “So it’s like this. I didn’t have many friends in elementary school because I was always practicing my musical instruments and my family members were friends enough for me. But in middle school, more people became social and as a result, I talked a little more as well. A lot of my initial friends were girls in the orchestra since they were often awed at my talent. Anyway, guys noticed that and they became my friends as well. I used to trust them with myself, but they would just use me to get those girls. I lost them one by one as they started to date each other, so I don’t have anyone anymore. I mean, Xavier, the one in our music theory class who I talk to on a regular basis, is my only real friend.” Upon hearing this, Bailey wishes she hadn’t asked in the first place. It seems that she’s hurt Ryan by questioning him about his friends. “Xavier wouldn’t use me like that, so I’m safe with him. I always wish that I made friends in elementary school, since those are the ones that are most likely to be trustworthy and loving.”

Bailey nods. She completely understands that last part. Her best friends are the ones she’s known even since before elementary school. And of course, Bailey has other friends besides Jenna and Lauren, but those are the two she talks to the most, spends the most time with, and trusts them with everything. They are the same vice versa as well. Without the two of them, Bailey’s life would be emptier and less fulfilling. Then again, if she didn’t have Jenna and Lauren from the beginning, would she even know what it would be like to have friends like them?

Ryan looks away from Bailey, clearly embarrassed by the appearance of red all over his face. “There’s your answer.” Bailey wants to comfort him, but she has no idea how to do so. Instead, they stand in silence until the bus arrives at the stop and they proceed to exit.

“Thanks for taking me to the bubble tea shop,” Bailey says. It’s pitch-black dark outside and she can barely make out Ryan’s face in the streetlamp light. “I really enjoyed it. Maybe we’ll go again, if we both have time.”

Ryan smiles at her. “Yes, I would enjoy that. Thank you for coming with me.” All of a sudden, he embraces her. Bailey gasps; she reluctantly hugs him back. They stay like this for however long it takes Bailey to count to three before they pull away. His body was very warm compared to hers. When she closes her eyes, for some odd reason, she feels his body heat surround her again. “Good night, Bailey. I’ll see you at school… wait, I’ll see you at your recital tomorrow, if I can make it.”

Bailey grins back at him. “Yes, I’ll see you there. Goodbye!” They wave at each other until Bailey heads over to the restaurant. She supposes that she’ll be working at the restaurant again for another long night. She knows that her performance is tomorrow and she knows that she should get some rest before the recital, but her obligations as a daughter take priority. Bailey walks into the restaurant and sees a deluge of people in the restaurant either eating or waiting to eat. She greets some of the customers with a head nod and makes her way over to the cash register where her mother is.

“Hello, Mama,” Bailey says in Mandarin. “What do you need me to do today?” Her mother puts down the phone and writes something down on a piece of paper before acknowledging Bailey.

Her mother gives her a half-hearted smile and replies in Mandarin Chinese, “Go waitress tables since Faith has the football game she’s attending right now because of her cheerleading. Scott’s helping out in the kitchen and Amelia’s waitressing as well as Huang Paliu.” Paliu, or Paula in English, is one of the few workers that Bailey’s parents have actually hired to work at the restaurant. But the two words that stick out in Bailey’s mind are “Scott” and “Amelia”.

“Amelia and Scott are here?” Bailey asks as she takes an apron, pad of paper, and a pen. She doesn’t leave the desk until her mother answers her.

“Yes, they are both here. Amelia’s staying for the weekend and Scott is just going to be here for the night since has a big project due on Monday. You can all socialize when the restaurant closes tonight.” Bailey doesn’t say anything about the fact that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are the days when the restaurant closes the latest. “Please go do your job now, daughter.”

Bailey usually would be upset with her mother, but the fact that her older siblings are here makes her one of the happiest people in the world. She goes over to a table where the customers have just arrived and goes through the script of asking them what they want for a drink and explaining the buffet system. She looks around for Amelia, but doesn’t see her. She does see Celine and David both washing the dishes, as well as Paliu waitressing.

She almost becomes worried when she doesn’t see Amelia, but Amelia is at the drink fountain. Bailey contains her squeals and walks over to the drink fountain with a long stride and a spring in her step. “Amelia!” she exclaims once she arrives by Amelia’s side.

Amelia turns around, shocked by whoever called her name. Once she realizes that it’s Bailey, her face lights up. “Bailey!” Amelia says just as loud. Their arms wrap around each other and they squeeze each other as tightly as possible. “I’ve missed you all so much.” They stay like this for a moment before they pull away because a drink is about to overflow. “It’s so lovely to see you.” Amelia is dressed properly and casually, yet still prim and perfect in khakis, a blue sweater, and oxford shoes. It’s only slightly affected by the black waitress apron above her clothes.

“Why are you here?” Bailey immediately interrogates her. “Why didn’t you come to visit us sooner? We’ve been so busy at the restaurant.”

Amelia puts her drinks on a tray and moves over so Bailey can do her job. “I don’t know, really. I mean, it’s partly because I have a job at a fashion firm nearby. Also, sophomore year is stressful. I’m here because I want to see all of you guys again, obviously.” Amelia rolls her eyes as if this fact isn’t obvious.

“That isn’t the whole reason,” Bailey says indignantly. “There has to be more to this if you’re coming to visit us on a regular weekend. Usually you come home on long breaks.”

Amelia blushes and helps Bailey put her drinks on a tray to get Bailey not to notice her face turning redder by the second. “Since you’re my younger sister, I’ll tell you.” She leans in closer to Bailey and Bailey presses her ear just centimeters from Amelia’s mouth. “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad about my boyfriend.”

“Richard Tan?” Bailey whispers. Amelia nods and puts her right palm over her mouth. “Don’t say anything to them about it before I do tonight, alright?” Bailey nods vigorously, knowing that the parents might lash out at Amelia for not telling them earlier. They walk in unison to their respective tables and place drinks on the table before moving on to the next tables.

They repeat this process over and over again until the restaurant closes at ten at night. All of them are tired, especially Celine, the youngest in the family, who looks like she’s going to fall over and sleep right away. They pile in their respective cars and drive home. Most of the time, the family would walk to the house since it’s only two blocks away from the main street, but it’s dark outside and no one wants anything horrific to happen to anyone.

David rests his head on Bailey’s shoulder for the short car ride. Arriving home is always a nice, tranquil, peaceful process. Besides the time Bailey spends in the lab, home is always best. She holds Celine hands and puts her into bed before coming out of the bedroom to stay up with Amelia and Scott.

Scott goes over to Bailey and hugs her. His few inches of height on her make her feel more comfortable and loved, for some reason. “Bailey, it’s great to see you again. Is there anything exciting going on?” Between Howie and Scott, Scott is the sociable older brother with pranks and silly jokes that make the family liven up. He’s the family’s little clown, though he isn’t little anymore. Bailey used to hate being the target of his jokes, but now she doesn’t mind. She’s grown up and Scott has gotten somehow more mature since he left for college and finished undergraduate study.

“No, there’s nothing except my lab work, which you already know about,” Bailey says. “There’s also my piano recital tomorrow.”

Scott throws his arms around Amelia’s shoulders; Amelia’s sitting down on the bench looking properly perfect. “We’ll be in attendance, right, Amelia?” Amelia smiles at Bailey and gives her a thumbs-up sign with her right hand. Scott leaves the couch and asks, “Where’s Mom and Dad anyway? Shouldn’t they be inside already?” He and Bailey walk over to the front door to investigate and see them just entering the front door. “Oh, never mind, then.”

The Wang family is a very dysfunctional family; Bailey noticed a long time ago of this fact. The parents are always over their heads with work and the children have schoolwork and work at the restaurant that none of them ever talk to each other. Bailey has no idea what it’s like to have parents around all the time to pick her up from school instead of her taking public transportation back home or what it feels like to see parents in the crowd at a school recital for orchestra. Her parents weren’t there for a good majority of her childhood. Bailey grew up under her older brothers and sister.

But now that all of them are getting older, their parents don’t know how to communicate effectively outside of the restaurant with the children. Talks about college are infrequent and about anything past that never happen at all. None of them talk to each other, period. Bailey used to wonder about how life would be like if her parents were more apparent in her life than they are now. Now, she just accepts this fate as normal. There’s nothing to change.

Just as Bailey’s parents take off their shoes, someone unlocks the door and walks in. “Faith!” Scott yells first. He runs to her and gives her a clawing bear hug. “I’ve missed you so much.” He pulls away and asks, “How was the game? I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to see you cheer, but I’m sure for homecoming that I’ll be there supporting you… and I guess the rest of the team too.”

Faith laughs as she takes her shoes off. Their mother and father enter into the kitchen and Amelia comes up right behind Scott and Bailey. “It wasn’t that great of a game, to be honest. The other team didn’t score at all and our team only made a field goal. You probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it to begin with – Amelia!” Faith shouts. She throws off her left shoe and falls into Amelia’s arms. “I have missed you more than you could ever imagine,” she says.

Amelia caresses Faith’s head and runs her hand through Faith’s dark brown hair. “I’ve missed you too, Faith. Come, let’s go sit down.” Bailey stifles a laugh by biting her lip. She knows why Amelia’s rushing everything; she wants to tell Mom and Dad as quickly as possible so Amelia can go to sleep and pretend like it all never happened.

Bailey and Faith follow Amelia into the small living room like baby ducklings that are imprinted on their mother. They sit on either side of Amelia as some sort of protection. Their parents come in the room and sit on the other couch. Scott looks around like he’s lost, but then sits down on the floor. David turns on the television, but their father tells him that it’s too late for him to watch television. David sulks with his head down and leaves for his bedroom.

“Wang Kaixiao,” their father says to their mother. “Can you boil the tea for us?”

“Yes, I will, Dayu,” Kaixiao replies. Even when they’ve lived in the United States for twenty-five years, they still retained their Chinese names and never Anglicized them for all these years, which makes English customers a pain to deal with when they want to call the owners by their first names. Amelia once suggested that their names change to Katherine and Donald, but it never happened and the Chinese names are stuck on them forever. Bailey doesn’t mind their names, but it’s a pain to explain, especially when their teachers ask for their parents’ names. Many people in the Chinese community have the same issue though; many teachers are used to foreign-sounding names.

Dayu and Kaixiao talk for a little while about the restaurant and how it’s doing, before opening up the discussion to their children. The atmosphere is very awkward and Bailey doesn’t know how to break it. She glances over at Amelia, who seems to be weighing the pros and cons of saying anything about her relationship with Richard. Faith is texting on her cell phone and laughing all the while. Scott is eyeing the television carefully.

“Ma, Ba,” Amelia says. Bailey, startled, looks over at Amelia, who is trembling with fear. She continues in Mandarin, “I’m dating someone named Richard Tan. He’s a very nice man and is an economics major; he’s a year older than me. He’s very respectable and in two weeks I will bring him to visit you all. You’ll like him, I can promise that.”

Scott has a smirk plastered on his face, but still doesn’t take his eyes off of the old television monitor. Kaixiao clamps her hands over her mouth in surprise. Dayu’s face turns red and he clamps his fists together. He asks his daughter, “Has he ever hurt you before?”

Amelia stands in up in shock. “No, never, Ba. He’s such a respectable man and very understanding. I said you’d like him. There’s no way he would ever do such a thing at all. Please trust me.”

Kaixiao puts her hands over her chest. “You’re a grown woman now, Amelia. I trust you to make your own decisions. But if we don’t like him when he comes to visit for dinner in two weeks, we will ask you to stop contacting him.” Bailey rolls her eyes. Her mother always makes everything sound like a business partnership when nothing ever is like that.

Dayu takes the teapot and teacups and walks over to the master bedroom. Kaixiao follows closely behind him. Once the children hear the door close behind them, Amelia lets out her pent-up breath and slouches down on the couch, looking less composed than ever before. Scott raises his eyebrows at Bailey and Faith, who in turn, look at each other and shake their heads. At least they hadn’t gotten super mad like the first time Howie ever brought a girl home back when he was in tenth grade.

“That went pretty well,” Scott says to help Amelia feel better about the whole situation. “I honestly don’t think they’re that upset with you, Amelia. At least you told them in Mandarin and at least he is Chinese. He is, right?” Scott attempts to make the room feel lighter, but it fails. Amelia just stares at him and nods before face-planting into a pillow.

Faith puts down her cell phone and rubs Amelia’s shoulders to make her feel more comfortable. “Amelia, that went well. Don’t worry so much about it. They’ll love Richard, and to be honest, I want to meet him too.”

Amelia gets up off the couch. “It’s late,” she says. “Let’s go to sleep?” They all nod and Faith and Bailey follow Amelia into their bedroom.

Before Bailey falls asleep, she thinks about the day she had. It’s different for sure, but Bailey doesn’t mind the slightest bit.


	6. Chapter 5

Bailey tugs at the waist line of her long, ankle-length black skirt she wears for every piano recital like a good luck charm of some sort. Her white, long-sleeve blouse contrasts the black of her skirt. After this middle school boy, it will be Bailey’s turn to play at one of the state’s most prestigious concerts. Ever since she arrived at the concert hall, she never looked back to see where her family is sitting. She doesn’t want to be nervous by looking at them right before she plays. This also means that Bailey doesn’t know if Ryan is coming. He didn’t text her saying anything about the recital.

The boy finishes his piece with a fermata and a bow. He exits the stage and Bailey stands up. She tells herself that it’s nothing to be worried about and that she’ll do fine. She walks up the steps to the elevated stage and takes a bow in front of the audience. She puts on a smile to mentally prepare herself to just have fun on the stage. That’s all she can do at this point.

Bailey sits down on the hard piano bench and readies herself. She takes a moment to think about how the piece flows and tries her best to remember as many notes as she can before she lays her hands down on the keys, takes a deep breath of air, and begins to play. 

She stops thinking about the notes, dynamics, tempo, or everything that would take priority when she would practice a piece. Now is her time to shine and enjoy herself. Bailey wants to spread the love of music to everyone in the room. She presses the notes and lets her emotions pour out of her fingertips into the sound of the piano. She puts every nuance in as possible that Bailey feels as she plays. Bailey knows her performance isn’t perfect; nothing she does is ever flawless. But she’s trying to enjoy herself and spread music to everyone, which is all she wants at this point.

Bailey plays with all her heart until the song ends and she finishes with a flourish. Everyone in the room is applauding her. Bailey grins and holds the edge of the piano with her left hand as she takes another bow. As she comes up from her bow, she notices someone all the way in the back row standing and clapping. Bailey squints to make out who it is. He looks familiar, but it takes a while for Bailey to recognize who it is. “Ryan!” she whispers under her breath. Her eyes light up. She desires to wave at him, but decides against it.

For the rest of the concert, Bailey listens and enjoys the pieces everyone else plays and also remembers how she felt while she was performing for the audience. Bailey can now easily recognize who is playing with emotion and who is not. The ones who play without emotion sound fine; Bailey doesn’t mind their pieces at all. Yet she realizes that it just sounds choppy and plain, nothing like the same piece played with feeling and emphasis would sound. She also wonders if Jenna or Lauren is here to support her. She hopes so.

The concert ends and the host of the concert states, “Thank you all for coming to this state-wide piano festival. There will be refreshments outside. I thank you for your time and the players today were absolutely a pleasure to listen to. Good night!” Bailey stands up along with the rest of the piano players as soon as the host stops talking and runs over to her family. Amelia holds flowers and gives them to Bailey with a hug. Scott nudges her head and smiles. Faith, David, and Celine all hug her as well. Kaixiao and Dayu just give their daughter a polite half-smile before exiting the concert hall first.

“You were amazing!” Faith squeals. “You played beautifully. I’ve never heard you play the piano like that before. Oh, and Jenna and Faith were here, but Jenna has gym conditioning and Lauren has rehearsal, so they left right after your performance. You should probably check your cell phone for texts from them.” Faith flips her hair behind her shoulder. The dress Faith is wearing is new to Bailey’s eyes. It fits her perfectly; all the time Faith spends with the cheerleading team must influence her new fashion taste.

Bailey smiles at her younger sister. “Thanks, Faith.” She glances over at Celine and David who are chasing each other up and down the stairs. Scott goes over to them two and pulls them away. He whispers something to them and they come back to Bailey.

“You played very well!” David says first. “There were some pieces I didn’t like at all, but I liked yours a lot, Bailey.”

Bailey ruffles David’s black hair. “Thank you,” she tells him before letting go of his hair to let him play on the steps again.

Celine pushes her mouth next to Bailey’s hair. “I loved your piano playing so much, Bailey. One day, I’m going to play as wonderfully as you do.” Bailey doesn’t know what to say to this; tears are forming in her eyes. She closes her eyes to keep the tears from leaking out and she hugs her younger sister tightly as if Celine could disappear any second.

After a minute, Bailey lets her go back to David. Scott’s the only one who hasn’t said anything to her yet, so she moves over to his side and holds onto his hand. “So, Scott, how did you like the performance?”

“I enjoyed it a lot,” Scott says. “It makes me remember childhood memories. I really miss being the prankster of the family,” he declares as he wraps his heavy black jacket around his torso.

“You’re still the prankster,” Amelia retorts, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling. Amelia never will forget when Scott cut her hair when she was eight and her long, beautiful locks were cut to her chin. Her perfect childhood dream of being a Rapunzel-like princess ended when he cut her hair. Bailey had just started kindergarten and she wouldn’t sleep near Scott for weeks because of the incident. “I still will never forgive you for cutting my hair back when I was in the sixth grade.”

Scott playfully rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t really matter, does it? You had a bowl-cut for half of third grade. Isn’t that better than being a princess?” Bailey and Faith throw their heads back with laughter while Amelia pretends to slap Scott for doing such a horrendous thing back when they were children.

Someone taps Bailey’s shoulder as she laughs and she turns around to see who it is. Maybe it’s her piano teacher, congratulating her on the performance. Yet with one look, she knows it isn’t the case. “Ryan,” she says out loud before clasping her hand over her mouth in surprise. He smiles at her and looks down at the floor, slightly embarrassed about interrupting the family discussion. “I’m so happy you came to see the performances. Did you enjoy it?” Bailey asks him politely. Faith turns back to her family; David and Celine are still on the stairs, Scott and Amelia are debating about pranks from their childhood, and Faith is texting her friend while raising her eyebrows at Bailey for talking to a guy. Faith finds it rare and Bailey does too, if she’s honest with herself.

He puts his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants. “Yeah, I liked it a lot.” Ryan still hasn’t made eye contact with Bailey. “You sounded great when you were playing.”

Bailey chuckles for a second before speaking. “Thanks. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” She tries her best to keep her eyes on Ryan so he can finally look at her for the first time since the conversation started. It doesn’t really work at all; Ryan still seems to be fully focused on the floor.

“You’re welcome,” he replies softly. Amelia taps on her shoulder and points to the door, signaling that they’re exiting the main hall and entering the lobby. Bailey nods to acknowledge this and the rest of her family members leave. With one quick sweep with her eyes, Bailey notices that she and Ryan are alone in the concert hall. The atmosphere immediately turns awkward and Bailey wishes she could go with her family and eat cookies before heading home to work at the restaurant.

She keeps this desire in her and instead, stands still in front of Ryan, waiting for a response. He finally says something short and sweet, “I think we’d make a good piano duo.”

“What?” Bailey says out of shock. Her mouth falls open and she feels her jaw unhinge a little from the shocker. That’s not anything like she was expecting.

Ryan shrugs like maybe the idea wasn’t a great one to begin with, but now he’s trapped in the mess he made. “I was thinking, you know, that in June of this year, if I make the finals for a national composing competition I plan on entering, I’ll have to play my piece for the judges and an audience, and I’m planning on making it a piano duo.” At last, he looks up at Bailey for a second before averting his eyes again. “That’s only if you want to play with me, of course. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can find someone else, it’s just…”

Bailey cuts him off with a laugh. “You can stop rambling now.” He peers up at her and blushes. “I think I’ll do it with you. It sounds like an extraordinary experience and I’m sure you’ll do very well at the competition. I’ll do it if you give me time to perfect the piece after you compose it.”

“I will,” Ryan promises. He looks at the clock perched up on the wall in the concert hall. “I don’t want to leave, but I have a piano student to teach in twenty minutes at the music studio.” Bailey feels her face fall. She wonders why she cares so much in the first place; she usually wouldn’t care so much about this kind of situation. “So I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Thanks for accepting my offer.”

Bailey walks with him to the exit of the concert hall. She doesn’t dare step outside when her family is still in the lobby, but she sees him to the door. “Yeah, I’ll see you later, then. Thank you so much for coming to support me.”

“You’re welcome,” he says with a cautious smile. Ryan waves to her as he leaves. Bailey shyly waves back and goes into the lobby to eat refreshments and stay with her family. Faith and Amelia both try to hide smirks, but one look from Bailey and they lose it.

“Who was that?” Faith asks.

Amelia walks and stands right next to Bailey so their arms rub against each other. “Yeah, who?” Bailey mentally braces herself for what is going to come next from her sisters. “Anyone we should now about?” Amelia smirks and Bailey kind of wants to hit her. But she won’t since it is Amelia, her older, beloved sister.

“It’s no one whom you two should worry about,” Bailey says nonchalantly as she possibly can while putting a chocolate chip cookie in her mouth. “He’s a friend of mine at school. He’s in my college level music theory class and is really talented.” Bailey says the truth about how she feels about him, knowing her sisters might turn any subtle hint of anything more into some type of love affair scenario.

Amelia and Faith put their head together as Bailey finishes her cookie and downs a cup of water. The lights of the lobby are luminous and striking; it reminds Bailey of how a well played piece should sound. It also reminds her of her science project and how it needs to be bright and obvious, while still retaining science within the overall project. It’ll be an uphill battle to keep working, but soon she’ll be done with the mathematical model and she’ll be able to test results on her subjects. That’s when it’ll get interesting, she tells herself.

“Do you, perhaps, like this guy?” Faith asks with a wink. The question catches Bailey off-guard and it takes her a moment to process what Faith is asking. The sisters see it as a sign of hesitation. “Oh my goodness, you do, Bailey! You do! You hesitated, which must mean that you honestly like him.” She and Amelia high-five each other while Bailey rubs her head in her hands. “I am right. Aren’t I?”

Bailey moves farther away from Faith and Amelia. “No, you aren’t right at all, Faith. Ryan and I are nothing more than friends who happen to like classical music. That’s it and there will never be anything more between us.” Bailey states this with conviction, but neither of them seems to buy it fully.

“His name is Ryan!” Amelia gushes, putting her hands up to her face and pretending to gush and be cute and innocent. “That is such a nice name,” she keeps going on and on. “And he looked really cute too, right, Faith? You completely understand when I say that.”

Faith nods along. “Of course, Amelia! He was freaking hot, if you ask me.” They giggle together like little school girls. Bailey can’t believe that they’re acting like they’re in the sixth grade, when crushes were the biggest deal ever. Bailey doesn’t even like Ryan romantically; why are they acting like this? She really doesn’t understand sisters in general, if she’s to be honest with herself. She doesn’t act like this when her sisters talk to a boy. At least, that’s what she thinks.

“Stop please,” Bailey says, wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Their father waves them over to the door to signal them leaving. Bailey grabs her jacket from Amelia’s arms and struts to the exit without any of them next to her. She feigns being angry and upset until Faith and Amelia catch up with her and link their arms with her.

Faith speaks first. “You know we were kidding, Bailey. We’re really sorry if we offended you.”

“You two just act like little sixth graders whenever I talk to any guy that isn’t in our family or a teacher of some sort,” Bailey says. She’s observed this over the past few years; Bailey just doesn’t find herself to be very social even if she loves languages with a passion. She prefers to observe others speak and learn from them than to speak on her own. It’s been a fault of hers since she was young to have people speak for her. She never fended for herself and now she’s scared to do so.

Amelia and Faith look at each other from other sides of Bailey. They make eye contact and nod simultaneously. “Yeah, I guess we do,” Amelia concedes. “But it’s only because we want the best for our lovely sister. Don’t you feel that way sometimes?”

“What’s with all these rhetorical questions?” Bailey mutters under her breath. She enters her parents’ car with Faith, David, and Celine. Scott and Amelia drive their respective cars and they head back home. Her parents don’t say anything at all about the recital, which doesn’t bother Bailey anymore. She’s learned to stand in the shadow of everything else that looms over their heads. Instead of talking about their child and how well she did at the recital, they discuss the restaurant and how it will operate over the holidays that are to come. Bailey falls asleep to the soft buzzing of her parents’ voices.

Out of habit, Dayu drives the family to the restaurant though they aren’t set to open for another two hours. He and Kaixiao plan to clean up the restaurant and somehow get ahead before opening. Bailey decides to walk around downtown and see the fall scenery before winter comes in full force. Winter in winter time is the prettiest, but Bailey doesn’t find that she’s fond of the cold that whips her nose and makes her ears red and numb. She savors the last bright colors of autumn. Leaves dance as they fall from the branches. Bailey lets the crisp air surround her. She checks her bag if she has any money, but she doesn’t have enough for any seasonal fall beverages from any shop downtown.

Bailey hears a familiar laugh with another deeper, throaty laugh coming from a few feet away from the coffee shop she’s standing in front of comparing prices of the drinks. She squints to see who it is. The laugh is too familiar for Bailey to stop wondering who it is. She leaves the menu and takes a few steps closer to the seemingly adolescent couple. Bailey gasps and puts her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound. Her mind spins.

Lauren’s laughing and sharing a hot chocolate with Xavier, Ryan’s only close friend. All these thoughts rush through her head, mainly about the fact that Xavier is possibly dating one of Bailey’s friends, meaning Xavier could be using Ryan and his new friendship with Bailey to find a relationship just like all of Ryan’s so-called friends have done before. She hesitates for a moment, thinking it isn’t her place to intrude. Then again, Ryan is her friend and Lauren is her best friend, and Lauren should’ve told her in advance. So, quickly, Bailey decides to interfere.

“Hi, Lauren, I didn’t know you’d be here!” Bailey says as politely as possible. She can hear herself and it all comes out sort of fake. She wants to pinch herself after interrupting the two of them, but it’s too late to go back and change it. Lauren’s eyes grow wide and innocent, like they often do when she finds herself in trouble. Bailey calls it the puppy-Lauren effect for a reason. Rarely anyone denies that face besides her best friends and parents. Lauren is still in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, considering she never dresses up formally for play rehearsals.

Lauren moves a little away from Xavier’s side and towards Bailey. She speaks in her soft, friendly voice. “Xavier just asked me out; we know each other since he’s on the lighting crew and I really like him and we’re going to start a relationship together. I’ll break the news to Jenna tonight, but please don’t be mad that I didn’t tell you. He just asked like ten minutes ago.” Her dark brown eyes slowly return back to their normal size.

Bailey shakes her head in disbelief. “Wow, I never even put two and two together, Lauren. It’s fine with me, really.” She turns on her heels to face Xavier, who doesn’t seem to be fazed by Bailey’s presence. “However, I’m more worried about Xavier.” Upon hearing his name, Xavier’s turquoise eyes get as big as Lauren’s when they were bulging a moment ago. “You know Ryan and all his fake friends and how they used him? Why are you going to do the same thing to him when he’s already had so many friends turn their back on them?”

Xavier’s eyes slowly fade to their normal size and he laughs. It isn’t a malicious laugh; he seems to just be dumbfounded by the whole situation. “I’m so sorry, Bailey. I don’t think you heard Ryan and I speaking a few days ago in class.” Bailey crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow in confusion. “I was asking if he would mind me dating Lauren. He said he was happy for me, really. This was even before you and Ryan were legitimately friends. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Bailey tries to detect evil intent in his voice, but it’s all just rational thinking and factual evidence. Bailey sighs.

Lauren tugs on the sleeve of Bailey’s shirt to avoid her getting hit by a few leaves getting blown in their direction. Bailey thanks her with a smile. She’s made the atmosphere awkward between the three of them and now she’s a third wheel, like always. Xavier moves closer and closer to Lauren’s side. Bailey has to admit that the couple of Xavier and Lauren look very cute together. They’re both quiet and light-hearted, but still have some mystery and darkness in them as well. They’re living paradoxes, but Bailey wishes that she herself wasn’t such an open book. She’s too easy to read, that’s what everyone says.

A breeze blows by and all the leaves on a few trees fall down all at once. Bailey shakes off the wind and takes a step back towards her restaurant, her front still facing the two of them. “I should probably go and help out at the restaurant,” she says. “I’ll call you later, Lauren.” Lauren nods. She’s at a loss for words on how to acknowledge Xavier, so she settles with, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Xavier.”

“Goodbye, Bailey!” she hears as she walks away from the same familiar voice she heard earlier. She has a smile on her face and Bailey waves with the back of her hand at the couple. She takes in the sight of the downtown buildings all decorated for fall with pumpkins, hay, and mum flowers strewn over every single building, even the restaurant, she realizes as she arrives at the building which houses her job for the next eight hours. Bailey takes a deep breath and mentally readies herself for her waitress job before entering and taking an apron.

Bailey’s cell phone buzzes and she opens it to see a text from Jenna, for once in proper grammar. “Do you know that Lauren is dating a guy named Xavier?” it reads.

Bailey rapidly texts back, “Yes, I just saw them outside Rainstorm Coffee Shop.” Then she puts her phone in a certain slot under the desk at the front and begins to set up the tables before customers come in. She sets tables up next to the ones Faith is doing now.

“What were you doing outside?” questions Faith. She doesn’t look up to see who it is beside her. She already knows.

“I was just walking around and taking in the last moments of autumn before winter strikes,” Bailey replies, not looking at Faith either.

Once they finish setting up, cleaning, and putting food in the proper containers, a slow, but steady stream of customers come in. Without the lights on because it’s afternoon, the restaurant feels gloomy and dismal as Bailey collects orders and serves others. Everything feels sluggish and slow today since the recital, which was the highlight of Bailey’s day by far. The restaurant routine is the same; nothing ever changes except the customers that sit in front of them. And if Bailey’s going to be honest, the customers seem to be very similar in her eyes. They are her sole sustenance until she is able to make an income out of the lab.

The darkness doesn’t bother her eyes; she’s used to having to work late hours in the dark at this point in her life time. She’s spent years of her life in the restaurant working small jobs to the bigger roles. Bailey’s always wondered who would inherit the restaurant when her parents had enough money to retire… of course, if they ever made enough money to do so. At the very least, Bailey knows that she would never accept the restaurant as her own. She barely recognizes it as a family entity.

She never lets herself take a break as she works. Bailey works like a machine; she just thinks about her lab work and school instead of anything related to the restaurant. Everything dealing with the restaurant is formulaic; she’s been trained to do this for so long. The monotony of working as a waitress has never appealed to her and she doesn’t plan on enjoying life in a job that doesn’t even pay her for longer. Her parents do pay her every once in a while, but it’s never the amount that she’s really worked for. Bailey could care less about the compensation, but she doesn’t want to work here. That’s the main reason for her hatred.

Her mind eventually floats over to Lauren and Xavier. She still cannot really take in the fact that they two of them are a couple. From what Bailey’s seen of Xavier, she assumes he’s not a bad guy, not like the last boy Lauren dated which caused huge drama in her life that Bailey and Lauren, and Jenna too, never needed to deal with in the first place. Her thoughts never seem to drift her away from her work though, which doesn’t really make much sense to Bailey. Then again, her siblings look zoned out and unfocused as well, and they seem to be doing just fine in their work too. After a few years, everything is a whole, elaborate routine.

The night ends slowly, too slow for Bailey. The work has made her tired and she still has a stack of homework to do before the evening ends and school starts up again tomorrow. Bailey enjoys school to an extent; it’s better than her work at the restaurant, for sure. But there are some things about the public educational system that she’d change in a heartbeat.

Bailey falls asleep late that night. She doesn’t really remember if she’s done all of her homework or if she’s ready to tackle the day in the first place. Her nights blur together now and every night seems to be so similar that Bailey cannot discern the difference from one to the next. The next day turns out to be a normal school day anyway. She and Ryan talk for a little bit, but he talks to Xavier too. They seem to be still good friends, so Bailey isn’t worried about the whole Lauren and Xavier situation.

The bus ride to the university later bores Bailey. She tries to get some reading in for English, but her mind doesn’t stay still. Today’s the day she’ll be finishing up her model and recording her own voice to test language fluency to see if she even fits the pattern and trend she hopes to observe. If she can’t even fit her own idea, how will anyone else fit the figment of her imagination? At least she has some science to back her up. She walks through the campus. As she looks around, she wonders if anyone thinks she is a college student and belongs on campus. Maybe she blends into the campus and is just a normal piece of the puzzle.

Bailey enters the lab and puts on her newly-cleaned lab coat. She sits down at the computer that’s been assigned to her and she inputs her login name and password. Some graduate students greet her as they leave the lab for class. Joyce smiles and takes a seat next to Bailey. “So, how’s your project going?” Bailey waits for the screen to fully load before responding.

She opens up her computer model and simulates a run once before she moves on to recording herself and her personal information. “Here it is,” Bailey says as she checks to make sure everything is running smoothly. “This is my model that I created, but of course, I’ll need to test on real subjects as well. I’ll have them speak their language and say a few easy and complex sentences, as well as test their musical ability in the music rooms nearby. They are nearby, right?” Bailey asks. Her face scrunches up with worry and doubt.

“Yeah,” Joyce says, her eyes stuck on the model running in front of her. “Wow, Bailey, I’m impressed. I could never produce anything like this when I was your age.” Joyce stands up from her chair before the model can finish. “This is great. You should report this to Professor Yoo.”

“I’m going to,” Bailey assures her. Joyce waves at Bailey. She leaves for another room on the floor. Bailey’s left alone in the lab and she sighs. Bailey tilts her head back and allows herself to take one minute of resting time before going back to work. The minute passes by too rapidly for her to experience it like she wants to. The things Bailey finds most enjoyable are the ones that pass by too quickly for her to really appreciate the time she has to do such an event.

Bailey runs the model once more before setting the audio area. She cleans the headphones and adjusts the microphone. She takes deep breaths as she launches the audio program installed on the computer. Bailey realizes she’ll have to speak all five languages she knows to the program and have to hear her recorded voice. She’s recorded her piano pieces many times; why is speaking in the different languages so hard? If anything, it should be easier for her.

The program pops up on the computer and Bailey follows the online instructions that Professor Yoo gave her to facilitate her using the program. Still no one has come in the lab yet. Bailey wants to take some time to just relax, but if anyone comes in, they’ll expect her to be working hard. As a high school student, Bailey has to put on a good image to everyone in the lab, be it just an undergraduate, or the head of the linguistics department in the state university. She has no time to deal with failure.

Bailey puts on the headphones and looks at the questions she hastily wrote down during calculus when she thought her teacher wasn’t looking. She didn’t mean to do other work during her class, but Bailey had fallen asleep way too early and gotten up too late to even remember to do the work for the lab. She vows to herself to never do it again.

She presses the record button and begins saying her name and age in each of the languages she speaks, as well as which instruments she plays that may have a correlation with her language skills. Bailey lets the audio take a pause before she begins speaking in English, then her native Mandarin Chinese. It is only when she reaches the Russian portion that she realizes she might not be the best candidate for this. Knowing all these languages compared to her music skills isn’t actually really a comparison. Her language skills are off the charts, but her music is just average.

She finishes in Korean and French before stopping the audio and allowing herself to listen back to what she was speaking. Bailey half-listens and tinkers with some of the sentence structures to make it be more native and fluent. In the end, nothing really changes in her sentences because Bailey’s already recorded herself. She definitely doesn’t want to put herself through that again.

Professor Yoo walks in the room and jumps when she sees Bailey on the computer. “Oh, Bailey! I didn’t see you there. I thought no one else was in the lab since there’s that big linguistics colloquium that all the linguistics majors have to attend.” She looks at her watch and at the wall clock for confirmation. “It’s still going on, I see. Were you supposed to come today?”

Bailey takes off her headphones and places them down gingerly on the table. “I don’t really know,” she admits. Bailey stands up and says, “I wanted to get a head start on my lab work since I know it’ll be really hard to compile all the data and create a comprehensive research report. It will be my first time and I’ll need more time to get it to the position I want it to be in when I’m done.”

They stand in silence for a moment before Professor Yoo nods and goes into her office. Bailey lets out her pent up breath and sits back down to replay her voice on the audio post. She replays it over and over again until she’s finished making sure everything went properly and fitting her results into the mathematical model and computer simulation. Somehow, she’s managed to actually fit the model relatively accurately. She squeals in her head and begins to design a flier that will be posted around campus to get people to come to the lab and provide information to her.

When she’s done with the posters, Bailey prints one out and walks over to Professor Yoo’s closed office door. She softly knocks on the door three times. Professor Yoo opens the door. “Yes, Bailey?” she asks.

“Could you put these fliers around campus?” Bailey asks a favor from her mentor. She lowers her head like some type of formal bow. Professor Yoo takes the sample flier from her hand and glances over it. Bailey shyly lifts her head up and tries to comprehend what Professor Yoo is thinking.

“This looks beautiful,” Professor Yoo exclaims. “I’ll put these around the area, and I’ll get my students to put them in more student-centered places. I’m sure you’ll get a good number of responses. Ask around at your high school too. I’m sure those kids spend a lot of time doing musical activities.” Bailey nods and thanks her before leaving the office. She turns off the computer and proceeds to the bus stop to go home. She’s not going to work at the restaurant today because it’s Monday and Monday’s are never busy at their Chinese restaurant. She checks her text messages once she gets on the bus. Jenna and Lauren both are inviting her to eat at Jenna’s house because all the step-siblings are at their other parents’ house. Bailey texts them both to say that she’ll be there.

Bailey realizes that she has so much work to do, but now that’s she’s made significant progress in her project, she thinks a bit of work could wait. She hops off at the downtown Winter stop and walks the mile over to Jenna’s house in the pitch-black darkness. Her teeth chatter on her way to Jenna’s house. The streetlights guide Bailey to Jenna’s house. They provide some sort of guidance when darkness surrounds her. When she arrives at Jenna’s house, the two of them greet her and begin to wheel her into the kitchen. Though Bailey’s family owns a restaurant, she’s never been extremely skilled in the kitchen.

“Please cut up the carrots,” Lauren asks her politely. Bailey puts on a spare apron and washes the carrots in the sink.

“Is anyone else home?” Bailey questions Jenna who is trying to operate the oven without burning anyone, including herself.

Jenna shakes her head. “No, no one is home. My mom and step-dad went out to eat tonight and all the kids are scattered around various families tonight, thank goodness. The house is ours to watch a movie or something like that. I think there’s some romantic comedy on tonight. No, wait, I think Titanic is on the movie channel. I guess we could watch that.”

“I’m in the mood to just relax,” Lauren says. Bailey agrees by banging the knife against the cutting board twice. She chops up the carrots as neatly as possible before washing them once more and putting them in a pan with all the other vegetables they cut up. She lathers some oil on the pan and begins to fry them the way her father would at the restaurant. Bailey hasn’t watched a movie in so long, never mind one that made her cry. She hasn’t even hung out with her friends in so long.

Bailey finishes the vegetables. Jenna turns on the radio and begins to dance along to the current song. Lauren and Bailey both look at each other and wince. Neither of them are fans of American top forty pop music. Well, Bailey deals with it on a regular basis because of her three sisters and their obsession with the kind of music that Bailey somewhat detests. Then again, Bailey listens to Asian pop music and the beats can be somewhat similar. She doesn’t really have much to complain about when she really thinks about it.

The song ends and another one with a similar, fast-paced beat. Jenna keeps on dancing while Lauren and Bailey laugh in the background. Bailey misses all the time they used to spend together. They all have their own activities now. Bailey doesn’t mind the differences that have made them unique from each other. She just misses her best friends.

They all set the table. Jenna mainly talks about how her life has been as a member on the school gymnastics team and how the team will absolutely annihilate all the other teams when it comes time for the county competition. Their school team is very well-known for its gymnastics program as well as its lacrosse and swimming programs as well. Cheerleading and tennis aren’t bad sports at Winter High School either. But the other sports aren’t renowned at the high school and many students don’t really go to watch the meets for those sports. It reminds Bailey of how she has her math team competitions coming up soon that she needs to prepare for, along with her various science competitions and the International Linguistics Olympiad that she plans to compete in for the first time come August.

Jenna turns off the radio and is the first to sit down at the large dinner table clearly meant for at least eight people. The whole house feels empty without any parents or children bustling around. Bailey can tell Jenna doesn’t feel at ease either; she’s fidgeting in her seat and glancing at the clock. Her house is huge because of all the people residing in it. Bailey’s sometimes jealous of all the space she thinks Jenna has, but it isn’t much more than what she has at the moment because Jenna has to live with all those siblings. Then again, Bailey has a similar amount of people in her family living in a house at least half the size of Jenna’s, if not smaller than that. Sadly, Jenna isn’t close with any of her siblings, Bailey knows that much. But she hasn’t been at Jenna’s house enough to really feel the genuine family dynamic like Jenna knows with Bailey’s family.

Lauren takes a seat next to Jenna, who is sitting at the head of the table. Bailey sits on the opposite side of Lauren which is right next to Jenna. “So, can we eat?” Bailey asks just to break the tension. It sounds strange coming out of her mouth. She’s never been someone to say anything directly; the confused look on Jenna and Lauren’s faces confirms her thinking. Bailey decides to just give a small smile in hopes that it will hint her idea to the both of them. Lauren nods without saying a word and peeks over at Jenna, who still doesn’t seem to understand what Bailey is insinuating.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jenna says. “Go right ahead.” She still doesn’t seem to get it. Lauren shrugs and Bailey sighs. She takes a spoonful of the salad and puts it on Jenna’s plate. Jenna’s eyebrow goes up, questioning why Bailey just did that. 

Bailey gives some to Lauren and then to herself before answering Jenna’s unspoken question. “You looked like you were having a rough day. I just thought I’d give you some salad to perk you up… if that makes sense.”

Jenna gives Bailey a soft smile and takes a bite of the salad. “Thanks. It’s been a really challenging day, but when isn’t it?” There’s a point to Jenna’s statement. The three of them pass along the other plates of food until everyone has a serving of every dish they created. “We should go around and say how we’re doing and everything. Let’s talk about these past few weeks. We’ve all talked to each other, but we really haven’t caught up. I’ll go first if you want.”

Lauren nods. Bailey lifts up her fork in agreement because she’s chewing. Jenna puts down her eating utensils and begins to speak. “I’m worried about my grades, of course, because even with an athletic gymnastics scholarship, I’ll need my grades to go up to get into the college in the first place. I don’t have friend drama, thank goodness. You two are the best in the world.”

“Thanks,” Bailey interjects. Jenna rolls her eyes and continues on speaking.

“But there’s something else on my mind. Please don’t hurt me when I say it aloud,” Jenna pleads. She clasps her hands together in a begging position and her face scrunches up with fear. Bailey turns to Lauren and they tilt their heads together in confusion. Lauren finally breaks eye contact and nods at Jenna to keep talking. “I know none of us really like Mark Murphy; what he said to Lauren and Bailey was unforgivable, I know. You don’t need to remind me about that. But we’ve actually been talking a lot, since he has soccer practice and I have gymnastics practice at the high school together. And…” her voice trails off and mumbles something under her breath.

“What?” Lauren asks. Her voice only gets loud and angry when she’s in suspense. Jenna says it again, but Bailey and Lauren still don’t catch what she’s saying. “Say it louder,” Lauren whines.

Jenna takes a deep breath and repeats herself. “I’m dating Mark Murphy. He’s become a good friend of mine and he asked me out two weeks ago and I said yes. I really like him, you guys. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said yes. Trust me.”

Bailey can feel her face heating up and her fists clenching. How can Jenna be dating someone who spent all of middle school tormenting Bailey and Lauren? Bailey never really cared; she didn’t care for him and his opinions and she had better things to do than worry about him and what he thought. She didn’t like him and never did, so it didn’t matter what he thought. But it devastated Lauren, especially since for some of elementary school, she had a crush on him. His bullying made her even shier and scared to trust anyone. She can’t believe Jenna would even think of dating him.

Lauren just keeps her eyes gazing down at her food. Bailey knows Lauren would never want to show tears in front of Jenna when she deserves to be happy. Bailey doesn’t want to say anything about the subject and just move on with the dinner, but she makes her mind up that she should at least say something when it hurts Lauren so much. Jenna won’t break up with him; her relationships never last long and this one won’t be the outlier for sure. Still, Bailey doesn’t desire for Jenna to be hurt by him either.

“Jenna, why? Why do you like him so much that you would hurt the both of us, your best friends, by dating him? You said you know what he did to the both us. He made our lives terrible for approximately three years and you still want to date him? What kind of friend would do that?” Bailey never likes to use rhetorical questions because no one ever answers them. Lauren still hasn’t looked up at either of them since the topic was brought up.

Jenna shakes her head. “I don’t know, alright? He’s really nice to me and he honestly says he wishes he wasn’t mean to either of you. He regrets what he did in the past and I truly believe him.” Bailey wants to laugh in her face, but she keeps it hidden. She doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. If Jenna likes him and would like to be hurt in the end, it isn’t Bailey’s choice. Bailey doesn’t understand her at all, but if Jenna likes Mark Murphy so much, maybe things will change for all of them.

“I have a feeling he hasn’t changed,” Bailey replies. “He’s saying he has because he wants to be with you. When he hurts you like he hurt both of us, you’ll come running to either Lauren or myself, and we won’t say we told you so. But you’ll feel it in your heart.”

Jenna’s face is turning red and Bailey wishes that none of this even happened. Lauren still hasn’t made eye contact, but she says, “Let’s stop talking about this. It makes all of us uncomfortable.” Without even a second for Jenna or Bailey to say anything, Lauren starts to describe an anecdote from the play rehearsal. It’s mainly about how Lauren fell off the stage once during a particular dance scene. Bailey can’t help but laugh; Lauren is usually very coordinated and never clumsy. The image of Lauren falling over on stage makes Bailey giggle.

“That’s so funny,” Jenna says. She laughs a little bit and finishes what’s left of her food on her plate. She pushes out her chair and moves over to the television. “I’ll set up everything for a movie. You guys can finish eating.” Jenna goes upstairs to work the television. Neither Bailey or Lauren say anything until she leaves. The atmosphere turns from tense to more tranquil.

Bailey finishes her food before she speaks. “Are you ok, Lauren? I mean, I wish Jenna didn’t start dating him, but she won’t change her mind. I don’t want her to get hurt, and I certainly don’t want you to be hurt. He said a lot of bad things, but we have to forgive sometime, right?” Bailey twirls her black hair around her index finger, clearly concerned about how all her friends feel. Friend drama is rare in her life; she usually doesn’t have to deal with problems between Jenna and Lauren.

Lauren takes a deep breath in and out before she looks Bailey straight in the eye. “I’m fine. It was a long time ago, and I think I’ve moved on at this point. But I don’t want Jenna to get hurt at all. The two of us are martyrs enough. I don’t know what to do with her. She always ends up hurting herself when she gets into relationships like this.” Bailey faintly remembers Jenna’s last two relationships and how badly they turned out. It hurt everyone Jenna knew. “I really don’t want her to be hurt time after time. It’s not right; she deserves better than him.”

“I’ve always wondered the reason why she exclusively dates stereotypical bad boys. I think I’ve figured it all out, though I’ll never be positive.” Bailey waits for Lauren to finish eating before coming out and saying it. “Her family life is such a struggle; my parents don’t care for me and your parents are lovely to you, but her parents go around and marry, only to find themselves hurt and with way more children than they ever expected.” Lauren nods to tell Bailey to keep going. “Jenna doesn’t want to keep feeling pain every time her parent divorces another husband or wife. I think the only thing that keeps her mind off of all that is another boyfriend. We know too much about her family and her family members don’t exactly help the situation. She wants some type of solace, even if it hurts in the end.”

Lauren nods, completely agreeing with Bailey. “That makes sense. I just don’t know if that’s what’s really going on, or if Jenna really feels hurt every single time this family thing happens. She rarely ever shows emotion when it comes to her family.”

Bailey shrugs and gets up from the chair. “Yeah, I really have no clue with her. But we’ll have to support her. We’re her friends.”

Lauren nods repeatedly, getting up out of her seat too. They both walk in silence over to Jenna’s bedroom which has a television inside it. Her mother separated her children’s bedrooms based on age and gender, which means Jenna has a whole room to herself. None of her children are close to Jenna’s age; there is at least a six year separation between Jenna’s oldest younger sister and her.

Bailey knocks on the open door to the bedroom, where Jenna’s flipping through television channels with her cell phone buzzing right next to her. Jenna waves them inside without looking at them. “The movie’s going to start in a few minutes.” She keeps the channel at the local movie channel and leaves her phone vibrating to talk to them. “Was the rest of the food alright?”

Leaving the kitchen’s calm and serene atmosphere and returning to Jenna’s bedroom, Bailey feels the tension building up again. “Yes, it was. Thanks so much for inviting us to dinner.”

Jenna tosses her black hair over her shoulder. Even after three hours of gymnastics practice, Bailey admires its straightness and shine. Jenna’s big dream is to stay beautiful even with gymnastics going on practically every second of her life. Lately, it’s been working.

Jenna’s room is filled with everything pink. The curtains are a sheer pink that when light comes through them, the room’s walls look slightly pink. The bedspread is a dark magenta that Bailey used to envy when they were in middle school. Stuffed animals are strewn all over the bedroom; it’s a miracle that Jenna can even walk without stepping on a dolphin or dog of some sort. The bookshelf next to the large bay window has a myriad of books that are of a variety of different genres. Magazines with pretty girls and attractive boys cover Jenna’s small white wicker nightstand. The gray carpet is accented with a pink rug at the foot of her bed. A huge desk with a mirror on it has barely any binders or notebooks; rather, it has makeup all over the desk and in every nook and cranny possible. The walk-in closet is filled with clothes. Bailey’s room looks nothing like Jenna’s; she and her sisters have no room for any accessories besides mattresses and clothes.

Lauren and Jenna are debating on whether it’s fair for teachers to all give tests the day before Thanksgiving break, which is coming up, before Bailey asks, “Do you guys want to volunteer for my project? I mean, Jenna, you play the clarinet and speak English and a miniscule amount of Mandarin Chinese and Russian. Lauren, you sing in chorus and can speak English and Mandarin as well. Your voice is an instrument, definitely. I would really appreciate it if you guys could come one day with me to the lab. I just need to record your voice and match up everything with the model I created. Could you guys do this for me?”

“Yes, of course, Bails!” Jenna exclaims in a second. “I don’t know if weekdays work for either of us, but we could try. Or can we go to the lab on a Saturday? After we record, we could explore the college campus. We live so close to the university, but I haven’t been there in at least a year or two.”

Lauren says, “Yes, I will come too. We want to support you in this endeavor, Bailey.” Bailey pulls them both in for a group hug. She embraces them until none of them can breathe.

“The lab is open on Saturday morning, so we’ll go together this weekend and record your voices. It won’t take long, I promise. We can explore the campus afterwards. We can even get Amelia to come around with us if she doesn’t have an exam that Monday that she needs to study for. I’m so excited. I really love you both,” Bailey cries out. “I couldn’t ask for better, more loving friends.”

Jenna raises an eyebrow. “You guys forgive me about the whole Mark thing?”

Bailey and Lauren look at each other for a split second before nodding at Jenna. Jenna smiles and they all embrace once more. Even with a thousand misunderstandings between the three of them, they still manage to reconcile and love every single time. Their years of experience as friends do help out; Bailey couldn’t bear to lose one of them.

The television starts blasting noise and Jenna shouts, “The movie’s starting!” The opening credits start to roll on the screen. She runs downstairs to get popcorn and candy. Bailey hears every single footstep down the stairs that Jenna takes.

Jenna arrives with a full bowl of buttered popcorn and an assortment of candy: Mike and Ike’s for Bailey, Crunch bars for Lauren, and jelly beans for herself. She also has three bottles of water that she places next to her friends. Jenna sits in the middle of her bed with Bailey on the right and Lauren on the left of her. The opening of the Titanic is everything Bailey remembers and more; the first time she watched the movie, she cried like a baby. She wonders if she’ll end up crying again. She cries at almost every movie though, so she feels that it’s inevitable.

By the end of the movie, all three of them are bawling. The popcorn bowl is on the floor with no popcorn left in it because they ate it all. Candy boxes are around the bed, finished as well. They all hold onto each other because tears keep coming and coming. Bailey vows to never watch the Titanic again. It just breaks her heart into a million pieces every single time. She needs to create a list of movies to never watch more than once; the list would extend for forever.

When they finally stop crying, Lauren reaches for the remote and turns the television screen to a news channel to stop their emotions and become the people they usually are. They watch the news in silence for a few moments before Jenna says, “Well, that was a really great movie to watch again.” Her eyes are puffy and swollen red from all the tears. Her hair, somehow, has stayed perfectly in place.

“Yes, it was,” Lauren says, finishing the last piece of her candy that she kept in her hand for the last minutes of the movie.

Bailey’s phone plays her text ringtone and she picks up her phone to read the text. “Oh, who is it?” Jenna says, leaning over to see the screen. Lauren is curious as well, and comes around the bed to look at the screen, but upside-down. “Who do you text besides the two of us and your family members, Bailey? Oh, and besides the book club, math team, and science team kids. They don’t count in the slightest.”

Bailey murmurs, “Why don’t they count?” She turns to Jenna for an answer and Jenna takes her cell phone, catching her off-guard. Her voice grows louder, “Give me my phone back, Jenna!”

Jenna reads the screen while Bailey tries to catch up with her. Another reason why Jenna’s bedroom is way too large for Bailey to imagine: Jenna can run around and Bailey cannot catch her. “Who is Ryan Cai? I’ve never heard of him.” Lauren bites her lip to stifle a laugh. Bailey faintly remembers when Lauren saw Ryan on that first day of school. “Let me see…” Jenna begins to read the text. “’I finished a small piece that I’m planning for one of my students to play for an upcoming state-wide festival, do you mind if you could stay after school for five minutes and hear it once?’ Oh, whoa, Bails.”

Lauren can’t contain her laughter anymore; she explodes in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Bailey finally reaches Jenna and snatches her phone away and types out a quick response of “yes, I will be there to listen to you play.” Jenna falls over on her bed and laughs alongside Lauren. Bailey shakes her head and rolls her eyes. They were all just crying a second ago; how come their emotions changed so quickly with just one text from a boy? The text wasn’t even to the two of them.

“Is he cute?” Jenna asks between laughs. Bailey shoots a look at Lauren to telepathically say to not respond. Lauren says nothing, but keeps laughing.

Bailey sits on the edge of the bed, not tempted to go any closer to them. “He’s somewhat attractive, but I don’t like him romantically. He’s a good friend of mine and he’s a very talented musician. Ryan composes his own music on the piano, cello, and guitar. His talent for music is unparalleled. We’re planning to do a piano duet if he makes it to the finals of the most prestigious music competition in North America. I don’t like him like you think, Jenna.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Jenna says with a smirk. Lauren’s laughter dissipates into a tiny fit of chuckles. “But he did ask you to play a piano duet with him. And I’m sure he’s cute enough for you to fall for him easily. It’ll only be a matter of weeks.” With that, Lauren laughs louder. Bailey sighs and throws her head back, exasperated. She doesn’t want a boyfriend; she wants to make a name for herself and have a great linguistics career above anything else. She’s also somewhat scared to have a relationship; how does love work that it’s so consuming and passionate? She’s scared to deal with it, so she avoids it like the plague.

Bailey states, “He’s just a friend and I intend for that relationship to stay that way.” Jenna waggles her eyebrows and Lauren has fallen on the floor with laughter. Bailey quickly changes the topic to the homecoming football game this coming Friday. Bailey doesn’t know if she’ll go to the homecoming dance; she has no one to go with. That sadly comes up, leaving Bailey with no escape plan for what Jenna brings up.

Football games aren’t a big deal at Winter High School because the team usually the worst in their league. It’s just a waste to spend time watching their games when they lose every single one, that’s what Jenna always says. But homecoming is a major event for the community; it’s the only football game the whole community really cares about. Children to adults gather at the high school and sit on the bleachers to watch. Everyone gets majorly excited; it’s the one game that is hosted at late afternoon into the night. An hour after the game is over, the homecoming dance begins, which is the third biggest event at Winter High School, save prom and graduation.

Jenna’s ears immediately perk up with the mention of the homecoming dance. Girls at school have been clamoring to find a date and the senior girls are all fighting each other for the homecoming queen crown. Bailey doesn’t really get all the festivities, but she does like having the community rally together to support each other, including their high school football team. “So, do you have a date for the homecoming dance, Bails?”

Bailey places her head in her hands and shakes her head. Her voice gets muffled by her hands. “No, I don’t.” She knows that Jenna and Lauren didn’t hear her, so she lifts up her head to say, “I do not have a date,” before going back to hiding her head.

“I see,” Jenna says, saying her words softly before planning her attack. “Well, you could go with this Ryan boy! I mean, you two are friends and he’s respectable and supposedly not bad on the eyes. I’m sure he would be happy to take you to homecoming.” Lauren, who had just composed herself and gotten back on the bed, rolls back on the floor in laughter.

Bailey wants to scream, but she stays calm and normal. “Oh my goodness, Jenna, why would you even say that? I honestly don’t like him like that and he doesn’t feel that way about me. I don’t need a homecoming date for any reason and I will be perfectly fine by myself at the dance. There’s nothing to worry about in the slightest.”

All of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there stands Jenna’s mother in a long, black dress and her face caked with makeup. Clearly, the dinner was quite formal. “Jenna? Why are Bailey and Lauren here?” her mother asks, annoyed with the state of the house.

“I was feeling alone, so I invited them over. We watched a movie and ate dinner together.” Jenna looks over at them and signals them with raised eyebrows to leave the house before her mother makes a scene. If the dinner went well, then her mother wouldn’t get upset within the next minute. Regardless, they needed to leave as soon as possible. “They’re just about to leave, in fact.” Jenna pushes past her mother in the doorway and ushers Bailey and Jenna out.

Bailey and Jenna take their backpacks and wave goodbye to Jenna. “Well, that was eventful,” Bailey comments. Lauren nods. They both walk in the same direction to their houses. “Do you think her mother’s mad with her? It isn’t Jenna’s fault at all.”

“I don’t think so,” Lauren replies. It’s so dark, they can barely see a few feet in front of them. The streetlights have dimmed; no one walks outside so late at night. “Her mother usually isn’t so hot-tempered after a dinner with her husband.” Bailey acknowledges this and they stay close to each other in the darkness. A car whizzes by with laughing high school kids in it. Bailey sighs. She just wants to go home and sleep.

Lauren arrives at her house first, since she lives in the neighborhood next to Jenna’s. “Are you sure you’ll be ok walking home?” she asks Bailey. There are lights all over the streets, but anything could happen.

“I’ll be fine,” Bailey says nonchalantly. She’s walked home from the restaurant so many times in the dark. “Have a good night, Lauren.”

“Good night, Bailey!”

Bailey walks the whole way home alone in the darkness. Her parents don’t ask why she wasn’t working in the restaurant. She stays up late finishing her homework, but she knows her time with her best friends is worth everything in the world.


	7. Chapter 6

Bailey lays her formal red dress down on her bed. Tonight is homecoming and the homecoming dance, yes, but the game is first. She’ll have an hour or so to come home and change before the dance; Faith is going to dance as well because she is a prominent figure in the freshman class as a junior varsity cheerleader. This is the one game even her parents will watch at the high school while one of the day workers will work overtime. Not that many people will order from the restaurant because they’re all at the football game.

Faith and Kaixiao are yelling at each other about something. Bailey looks at the clock; the family has five minutes to get ready and be in the car in order to get Faith on the field at promptly five in the afternoon. Bailey stashes a water bottle, two granola bars, and her cell phone in her backpack and leaves the girls’ bedroom to go into the car. The minivan is up and running, not to Bailey’s surprise.

“Hello, Baba,” Bailey says to her father in Mandarin Chinese. “When are we leaving again?”

Her father responds, “Whenever the rest of your family decides to come in the car. That might not be for a while.” Bailey nods and settles in her seat in the second row. It’s hard to fit her whole family in the car; Amelia, Scott, and Howie won’t be at the game. Fitting Faith, David, Celine, and Bailey isn’t a challenge, but when the three of them come along, it becomes exponentially harder. David and Celine enter in together and sit in the back like they always do. The family sits in the same seats for every car ride for the oddest reason.

Slowly but surely, Kaixiao and Faith come in the car. The family leaves for the high school. Faith turns on the radio and she and Celine sing along to the current song that is playing. David is making some type of noise in the background as they sing. Though her parents aren’t fond of the noise the children make, Bailey loves that they are a musical family. Every one of the siblings plays an instrument of some sort, and they’re decent at it too.

The high school isn’t far away; they arrive in five minutes by car. It’s hard to find a parking space and they take the last one in the fourth row out of six in the high school’s parking lot. Faith sees a member of the junior varsity cheerleading team and runs over to her, shaking their pom poms and laughing together. Bailey smiles; it’s great to know that her younger sister fit into the school nicely and without any problems. Bailey was never worried about Faith; it’s just that cheerleading can be a sport with cliques and competition. But all the girls on the team seem to get along well.

Bailey looks for Jenna and Lauren in the parking lot as the family walks over to the bleachers, but she doesn’t see either of them. She waves to a few friends she has from in her classes. Yet she wouldn’t hang out with them on the night of homecoming. Homecoming is to be celebrated with best friends and the whole community all together as one.

Dayu and Kaixiao find space on the bleachers next to some of their friends; they all speak Mandarin Chinese with each other. David and Celine find their respective friends and go hang out with them on the small patch of field grass that isn’t part of the football field. Many elementary school children hang out on that little grassy area and play their own game of football or just chat. That’s where the vendor for food is located anyway. Faith is near the field getting ready for their performance and cheers, while Bailey sits down next to her parents. Some of her family friends ask her how she’s doing with school and the lab and Bailey patiently answers every question fielded to her.

Soon, Jenna arrives with the rest of her crazy family. Five siblings follow behind her like ducks and her mother and step-father are right behind. “Please get me out of here,” Jenna whispers in Bailey’s ear. Bailey stands up and they leave the area for a better spot on the bleachers where more of their classmates are located. Once they’re out of earshot of the parents, Lauren questions, “Did you see Lauren yet? She said she’d be here when I asked her last night.”

“Is she with Xavier?” Bailey retorts. Jenna looks around the bleachers and on the field and sees no sign of either individual. They decide to pick a seat behind some gymnastics girls Jenna knows. Bailey feels a tap on her shoulder. She turns around and sees Lauren standing next to her. “Lauren! Hey, we were just looking for you.”

Lauren plops down on the bleacher bench seat next to Bailey. The cheerleaders are making their grand entrance for their performance on the field. “I’m really sorry that I kept you waiting. Xavier was running a little late and he wanted to take me instead of my parents. My parents are up there.” She says this and points over to where Jenna and Bailey’s parents both are.

“You came with Xavier?” Jenna asks. They stop talking for a moment and watch the cheerleaders cheer. Faith is a base, so there isn’t any flying she does in the air. However, she commands the field and has a great presence that others don’t. The varsity cheerleaders have their turn, then they all join together. The older cheerleaders have more experience in commanding the crowd, but Bailey can’t take her eyes off her younger sister. She’s so flexible and versatile.

Lauren mutters in Bailey’s ear, “Your sister is so amazing. She can do more than half of those girls on varsity, it seems.”

“She is great,” Bailey agrees. She’s rarely ever seen Faith cheerlead before, so this is a whole new world for her as well. Bailey wonders if her parents have seen their child doing crazy stunts and moves at cheerleading. Probably not, Bailey decides. Faith keeps cheering and soon, the performance ends. The announcer announces that the football team is coming on the field. The cheerleaders stand in the middle of the field and begin to scream and shout for the football players. One by one, each football player on the team is announced, and the community in the stands goes crazy for each one, even if they aren’t on the starting positions. Bailey covers her ears because it’s so loud, but she loves every second of this crazy time.

Eventually, all the players are announced from Winter High School and then the other team’s starters are stated out as well. Everyone claps for them out of courtesy, and the knowledge that the other team will probably end up winning by a huge margin. The game is going to start in about fifteen minutes, after the teams warm up. The cheerleaders leave the field and get ready for their cheering. Bailey talks with Jenna and Lauren to finalize plans with them about the recordings and the exploration of the state university’s campus. Everything seems to be ready.

“So, did you end up finding a date for the dance tonight?” Jenna asks Bailey with a glint of something suspicious in her eye. Lauren hides her laughter behind her palm.

“No, I don’t need a date for the homecoming dance, Jenna. What are you guys wearing tonight?” She deftly changes the topic from dates to dresses.

Jenna launches a long description of her light pink satin dress that she bought for prom but never used because her date couldn’t go because he had a meeting with the college that same weekend. Bailey’s seen the dress multiple times before; Jenna keeps on describing every detail of the dress with the long line of rosettes going down the front and the three ruffles near the hem. She’ll be wearing pearl-white heels about an inch high and her hair will be a nicely done bun with a white rose placed in her hair. Bailey can imagine it all; Jenna will look like a fabulous, chaste princess.

Lauren doesn’t say much about what she’ll be wearing, but she does state that her dress is a teal color and has silver accents around it. Bailey talks about her red dress for a little while. They talk about how they’ll get ready in such a short time until the football game starts. The opposing team gets the ball first and everyone in the bleachers screams, “Defense!” The message doesn’t really reach the team; within five minutes, the other team has scored a touchdown.

When Winter High School has possession of the ball, they don’t make much progress and it quickly returns back to the other team. When halftime comes, it comes as a much needed relief to both the team and the crowd. The score stands at thirty-five to zero with the opposing team at a score of thirty-five. And it’s only been half of the game.

The marching band comes on to play a few marches and pieces. Bailey, Jenna, and Lauren mainly stay silent as the band plays. The musical talent of Winter High School is unrivaled, unlike their athletics. The marching band leaves to loud screams and cheers and the cheerleading comes back on the field for another few cheers. This time, their cheers are more interactive with the crowd, and everyone, mainly the children and high school students, get very into it.

Halftime ends and the second half of the game begins. The Winter High School team looks energized and ready to win. They play harder than they did the last two quarters; however, the score at the end is sixty-three to fourteen. Everyone starts to go home feeling defeated. Bailey says her goodbyes to Jenna and Lauren and leaves with her family back home. At home, she and Faith will have to hurry to get ready for the dance.

Once Bailey gets home, she runs to the bedroom and puts on her dress. She twists and tugs on it to absolutely sure that it fits. Faith comes in the room right behind her and spends more time getting ready. Bailey combs through her hair once and finds that her appearance is acceptable. However, Faith straightens her hair and combs through, and also ties her hair up in a bun to keep it out of her face. She lets two tendrils slide out of the front and she curls them with a curler.

“Do I look fine?” Faith asks. For all Bailey knows, Faith doesn’t have a date to the homecoming dance tonight. Bailey wonders who Faith is trying to impress; perhaps she wants to show all the freshman boys that she is the one to date? Or maybe she wants to look great to wow the rest of the cheerleading team? Bailey doesn’t really understand the whole idea of popularity within high schools. It’s all a hierarchy and the popularity can only last for a second before something interrupts it and someone else becomes more popular. It’s cyclical; Bailey’s never been a part of the cycle.

Bailey nods. “Yes, you look fine, Faith.” Bailey debates putting on makeup, but decides against it. She has no one to impress at the dance. She’s going for a good time with her friends, some exercise with dancing, and celebrating homecoming festivities. That’s really it.

Faith pushes past Bailey to enter into the bathroom, the room with a decent-sized mirror. “I have to look more than just ‘fine’, Bailey. Unlike you, I have a reputation to uphold.”

Bailey walks with Faith to the restroom. “What reputation do you have?” Bailey asks out of curiosity. Faith pins up flyaway hairs and sprays them with hairspray.

“I’m a high school cheerleader. You might not notice, Bailey, but people think that I have to look perfect when it comes to events like these. It’s some kind of engrained expectation everyone has.” Faith turns away from the mirror and makes eye contact with her older sister. “You can even ask Amelia about this. People hold me to a higher standard when it comes to my visual appearance.” She leaves the room and checks the clock. “We should go now.” Bailey follows Faith out the door and into the car, where their father is still waiting.

Faith and Bailey don’t speak in the car. Bailey’s still reeling from what Faith said. Are cheerleaders really supposed to look perfect for every casual and formal occasion? Bailey doesn’t understand that part of high school social hierarchy either. Amelia never really mentioned the social class system at Winter High School and Bailey never asked. It never mattered to her and it isn’t going to matter to her now. The high school is nicely decorated when the car pulls up to the front entrance.

“I’ll be here at promptly midnight to pick you girls up,” Dayu says in Mandarin. Bailey and Faith nod simultaneously and then proceed to enter into the school.

“I hope you have a good night,” Bailey tells Faith, who is wringing her hands with nervousness and anxiety. Faith looks like an angel in the darkness with soft light hitting the sharp features of her face. “You look beautiful. You shouldn’t worry too much about it all.”

Faith smiles at her sister. She still shows signs of nervousness even within her smile. “Thank you, Bailey. You should have a great time as well. I know dances aren’t your cup of tea, but enjoy yourself.” Faith reaches for her sister’s hand and they squeeze each other’s hands before going into the gymnasium where the dance is held. Faith immediately gravitates towards her cheerleader friends. Bailey’s left near the doorway to find someone to socialize with before she can find Jenna and Lauren. She’s about to go talk to some classmates she knows from her math class when a voice stops her right in her tracks.

“Bailey?” The voice says. Bailey turns on her heels to see who’s calling her. A familiar figure gazes at her in a black suit and a dark burgundy tie. His face is very familiar; his dark brown eyes light up when he sees her. His black hair is combed through, but still looks relatively normal. Bailey registers him as Ryan when she takes another step towards him with another closer look at him. She walks over to him until she’s only a few feet in front of him.

“Hi, Ryan,” Bailey greets him. Her hands smooth down the red fabric of her dress. “I didn’t know you were going to be at the homecoming dance tonight.”

Ryan shrugs and looks around the gymnasium where already people are dancing and loud music is blasting. Bailey winces at one of the particularly booming beats in one of the songs. “Xavier dragged me here. He said it’ be fun and I would have a good time. But I wasn’t so sure about that.”

Bailey moves closer to him to hear him better. “Jenna and Lauren often drag me to these kinds of festivities, so I’ve learned to come voluntarily instead of resisting their wishes. Jenna and Lauren are my best friends,” Bailey says for clarification.

“I see,” Ryan replies. In a louder voice, he says, “Are you waiting for your friends right now?”

“They’re probably all with their boyfriends right now,” Bailey scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. Ryan laughs at this. They begin to talk at the doorway of the gymnasium over the loud noise of the music about everything, mainly about how their day went and how homecoming was. Ryan was actually at homecoming, Bailey just didn’t see him. The two of them don’t know enough about football to garner a full conversation about it, so the conversation delicately switches from the football game to various other topics.

Eventually, the loud music goes from loud, angsty songs to more easygoing and lighthearted ones. The DJ announces, “I’m putting on a slow song next! Find your soul mate and dance with them tonight!” All the girls in the gymnasium seem to squeal and uproar all at once. Bailey giggles behind the palm of her hand. It’s been at least half an hour and neither Jenna nor Lauren has come to say hello to her. They’re probably too busy kissing their boyfriends, Bailey decides.

She feels Ryan’s hand on her shoulder and Bailey turns back to him with a suspicious look on her face. She doesn’t say anything about his hand being there until he explains himself. “Um, Bailey, do you, uh, want to dance with me? I mean, it is a homecoming dance, so I thought maybe we could dance once if you wouldn’t mind.” Bailey tries to not laugh at his blabbering, stuttering statement. She wouldn’t mind dancing with him, not in the slightest.

“I’d love to dance with you this once,” Bailey tells him. She reminds herself not to fall for him romantically; she has enough on her mind and doesn’t need a boy to ruin it all for her. Not that Ryan would ruin her mindset; it would just make her more preoccupied with everything else that she wouldn’t have been worried about in the first place. Bailey’s too scared to love anyone more than platonically at the moment, so she’ll avoid it as much as possible. But one slow dance shouldn’t hurt, right? At least that’s what she tells herself.

The song starts up and within the first few chords, Bailey can tell which song is playing. It’s “The Scientist” by Coldplay, one of her favorite songs to ever exist. She finds it somewhat ironic that out of all the songs, “The Scientist” is the one that plays. It all ties in with her science research project and how she’s in the science field; Bailey’s afraid of anything that can’t be proven with science.

“I love this song,” Ryan says. “Everything about it from the lyrics to the chord progression is so beautiful.”

Bailey agrees, “Yes, this is one of my favorite songs of all time.” She doesn’t elaborate on the fact that this song is the one song she completely understands and has a connection with. She’d rather keep that part hidden for her to know.

They are swaying to the tune of the song, but their hands are not on each other yet. The song’s first verse is almost done and Ryan cautiously puts his hands on Bailey’s waist. Bailey blushes on contact with her body and his. He focuses on her reaction and gauges it accordingly; Bailey is surprised, yes, but there isn’t anything surprising about this. She’s waiting for a slow dance and everything like his hands on her waist is all part of it. Ryan’s warm hands contrast Bailey’s colder body. She wraps her hands around his neck and they sway to the beat.

Bailey wants to rest her head on his shoulder and just enjoy herself, but she can’t push herself to do so. She just stays stiffly in place as they both move together in unison. They don’t talk amongst each other. Bailey listens to the lyrics and feels each one of them strike her heart over and over again. His body heat on hers makes her feel calm and loved romantically for once in her life. It isn’t the love she feels from her siblings or her friends, and it isn’t the parental love she’s missing from her life. It’s something all together and Bailey’s too scared to take the plunge into it.

Slowly, the song ends and Ryan’s hands are off of her waist and her arms are no longer wrapped around his neck. A faster-paced song comes on and they don’t know what to do anymore. Bailey leaves her hands at her sides because she doesn’t know what to do with them. Ryan fidgets for a moment before getting closer to her. He moves to embrace her, but does so hesitantly in case she doesn’t want to hug him. Bailey, for some reason that she herself can’t pinpoint, wants to feel his embrace.

Ryan wraps his hands around her and Bailey presses up on him with her hands on her back. She closes her eyes and counts to three in her head before they pull away simultaneously. Bailey doesn’t want to keep feeling awkward towards Ryan, so she says, “That was a nice dance. I liked it a lot. Thanks.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t really come out.

He attempts to smile too and at least Bailey feels like they’re both on an equal playing field when it comes to this. “I liked a lot too. And we got to dance, which is what we came here for, right?” Bailey laughs at this and they slowly leave the dance floor back to the doorway. They’re both laughing and talking when Bailey, all of a sudden, sees Lauren and Xavier at the doorway whispering amongst themselves. She stops in her tracks and Ryan notices her stopping.

“What’s the matter?” he asks. Ryan follows her eyes to the doorway where Lauren and Xavier are. “Oh. We should go say hello to them. I can’t believe after all this time, we only saw them now.” Bailey nods silently and they keep walking. Lauren won’t be someone that will make fun of her for slow dancing with a boy, but she’s still nervous for her reaction, if she even saw.

When they arrive, Xavier is the first to say hello. “Hey, Ryan. Hello, Bailey. You guys looked like you were having a lot of fun out on the dance floor.” Bailey’s face gets red again. Lauren doesn’t show any signals of falling over with laughter, which is great for Bailey.

“We were,” Ryan states plainly and simply. “I didn’t see you guys though. Where were you?”

Xavier launches into a whole story about how they were dancing to every song in the back of the gym so no one could see their failure of dance moves. Bailey tries her best to hide her nervousness and laughs at every other one of his sentences. Ryan doesn’t say much and neither does Lauren, except when Lauren wants to point out how badly Xavier dances with a few example moves.

The song switches and Lauren almost drags Bailey out to the dance floor. “You don’t mind dancing to a fast song, yes?”

“Why’d you take me out to dance and not Xavier?” Bailey retaliates. She attempts to move to the rhythm and dance according to what other moves students are dancing to. Xavier and Ryan are looking over at them. “Because I’m pretty sure even his dance moves can rival mine.” Lauren observes Bailey as she does her best to move along and flow with everyone else.

Lauren sighs. “I really wanted to spend some time with you and dancing is fun. Besides, you’re a much better dance partner for this type of thing than Xavier will ever be. Not that I’d ever tell him that,” Lauren adds shyly. Bailey laughs at this; Lauren can be sassy when she wants to be. In the soft, dimmed light, she appears as almost an angelic figure.

“I like dancing with you too, except I’m not an expert at it for sure.”

“You don’t need to be an expert for this. Just have fun.”

They dance until they finish the first chorus and Xavier comes over to the girls and begins to dance in his crazy motions. When Bailey finally sees his dance moves for herself, she can’t help but laugh. He looks like he’s bobbing up and down in water while doing some type of chicken walk. Bailey doesn’t mind his incompetency at dance though; he’s better than her in so many other ways that it makes up for it by a lot.

Ryan still hasn’t come over by the end of the song, but when the song changes, the three of them don’t depart from the middle of the gymnasium floor. They keep dancing, changing their moves to fit the beat that’s being played now. Lots of students, mainly female, start to sing along with the next song and even Lauren knows the chorus. Xavier asks them, “Is Ryan going to come over here and dance with us?” Bailey shrugs and Lauren doesn’t hear him at all.

In the middle of the song, Bailey looks over from the DJ’s table and back to Lauren and Xavier only to see Ryan next to Lauren and Xavier attempting to move around. Bailey smiles at him and he grins back at her as he copies a few moves he sees others do and does them almost perfectly. His musicality, even when it comes to dancing at dances like homecoming, can easily be seen with the smoothness and timing of all the nuances in his dance. If Ryan wasn’t so talented at his musical instruments, Bailey thinks he could be a professional dancer with some training.

Bailey dances however she feels fits the next few songs that come up one by one. Lauren and Xavier slowly leave them two when Bailey doesn’t even notice it. Eventually, she realizes that Lauren and Xavier aren’t anywhere near her and Ryan and she immediately feels somewhat self-conscious. By the look on Ryan’s face, Bailey believes he doesn’t know yet that Lauren and Xavier left the two of them alone in a room filled with high school students. Instead of letting him know of this fact, Bailey keeps on dancing with him with a smile plastered on her face.

Ryan doesn’t notice for quite a few more songs. He and Bailey don’t talk; they just dance to every fast-paced rhythm that plays. Bailey’s actually enjoying herself for once at a school operated dance function. It’s rare for her to enjoy anything involving loud noises and constant social interaction with people she barely knows, but she doesn’t mind dancing with Ryan to fast bubblegum pop songs. She puts behind her all her thoughts that worry her or keep her preoccupied constantly. Instead, Bailey focuses on her body movements and the lyrics of the songs. For the most part, the lyrics are actually decent.

They dance the night away, or, at least until Jenna comes over with Mark. Upon seeing Mark’s face, Bailey stops dancing right away and folds her hands over her chest. Ryan can feel the tension between Mark and Bailey and he inches closer to Bailey as if to protect her. Jenna doesn’t seem to notice the animosity between the two of them. “Hey, Bails! I didn’t see you the whole night, which I found really surprising. It’s nice to know you’re having a good time. Are you Ryan?” Jenna asks. Bailey tries to admire Jenna’s attire, but it doesn’t really work when she’s annoyed.

“Yes, I am,” Ryan says succinctly. Jenna nods and turns to Mark, who has a smirk on his face. Bailey’s glaring at him with as much anger she can put in into one gaze as possible. Jenna realizes their look, but she doesn’t do anything about the situation to fix it.

“Mark, this is Ryan. And this is my best friend, Bailey Wang. I think you’ve met her before in middle school,” Jenna says as sweetly as she can be.

Mark takes a step closer to Bailey. Bailey sucks in her breath, but still doesn’t say a word to him. “Yeah, I’ve met her before. You’re that girl I used to see all the time in the hallways. Nice to see you around the high school.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Bailey reminds him as kindly as she can. She doesn’t want to bring up the past, but since he seems to have forgotten all the terrible things he did to her, Bailey’s going to make him say what he did.

Mark takes another step over in Bailey’s direction. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He turns to Jenna, who hasn’t shown signals of warning towards him. “You’re the one I called a nerd and pushed you into lockers and through your books away from you while I called your little friend names too. What was her name… Lauren?” Bailey’s hands clench into fists and hot tears form in her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry in front of him; Bailey doesn’t want to show any signs of weakness.

Before she can do anything and before Jenna can even react to what Mark said, Ryan blocks Bailey from his view and says, “You are a terrible person to do such a thing to Bailey.”

“Why do you care?” Mark retorts. “Are you dating her or something? Why does it matter to you that Bailey was and still is a nerd and I’d hurt her in any way possible to show that she’ll never be a normal teenager and probably won’t have a future in this world?” Bailey just wants to go and she tugs at the end of Ryan’s suit coat to get him to move, but he doesn’t. If anything, Bailey’s a bit confused by Mark’s statement; she’s wiser than he is, so should she be the one who has a future over him? Either way, she just wants to leave and get out of Mark’s way.

Ryan is shocked by the response that Mark crafts. He can’t say anything to that; he doesn’t move. Bailey doesn’t want to be dependent on him and his protection. She has to defend herself. “I don’t want to start a fight here, Mark. Please just leave me alone.” Mark laughs straight in Bailey’s face.

“No guarantees on that, Bailey. As long as you know that you’ll never be able to be normal and not a smart, little freak, then that’s all that matters.” Every word Mark says against her is another arrow to her heart. Her hands clench up and she vows not to cry when he’s looking. Jenna is pleading Mark to leave at this point, but he shows no signs of leaving just yet.

Bailey finally decides it’s best to just leave Mark than to push him any further. “Don’t hurt anyone else like you’ve hurt Lauren and me,” she warns him. Bailey takes Ryan by the hand and drags him out of the gym and to the outside of the school. They sit right next to each other on the bench that Bailey takes them to. Ryan looks over at Bailey and at last, she loses her self-will not to get emotional over what Mark was saying. She begins to cry all the tears that welled up when she was speaking with Mark. The tears stream down her face; she can’t seem to stop herself.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to croak out. She wipes away her tears with her delicate fingertips, but they keep falling out of her eyes.

Ryan doesn’t look at her and instead, looks towards the sky. “Why didn’t you tell me he was being like this to you earlier?”

“It never came up,” Bailey replies through her tears. “Also, I haven’t seen him since the end of eighth grade. I thought this would all disappear, but it all comes back full circle, doesn’t it?” She laughs maliciously to avoid some of the tears that pour out. “I’m sorry for having to put you in that situation. You shouldn’t have to deal with him.”

Ryan shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Why is your best friend dating someone like that? You would think she would know better about this.” Bailey still asks this question herself, though she internally vowed earlier not to think about it so often. Mark’s words shouldn’t hurt her anymore; she’s independent and building her own future for herself that will lead to happiness and doing something she loves. His words shouldn’t detract her from her passions.

“I don’t know,” Bailey admits. “She likes him and I can’t do anything about it.” With those words, Bailey’s sobs get worse. She’s reminded of everything Mark has said and done to her and Lauren a few years ago and everything rushes back in the worst way possible.

Ryan reaches over and brushes Bailey’s hair out of her face. He takes her head and wipes a few tears that spill out of her dark brown eyes. Bailey’s breath catches when his fingers touch her face and brush away her tears of despair and sadness. Ryan wipes all her tears away until finally, they stop coming out. Bailey sighs when no more come out. She doesn’t know how to feel about the whole situation. She should be happy for Jenna, yes, but she put Ryan in such an awkward situation.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, in hopes that it’ll fix all the problems she put Ryan in.

Ryan shakes his head in disbelief. A light breeze blows through. “Why are you sorry? You don’t need to be. I’m here for you, Bailey. Just call me and I’ll be there in a heartbeat. You’re one of my friends and I’d do almost anything for you. Please don’t cry over this and please don’t be sorry. You’re loved by the world and by so many people, like your friends.” Ryan appears like he wants to say something more, but he leaves his statement like that.

Bailey lets out her breath that she was holding in and says, “Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it a lot.” Bailey smiles at him and wipes her eyes for any remaining moisture.

“Do you want to go back inside? I mean, people might start wondering about where we are and all. I didn’t want to cause a scene for your sake, and disappearing might kind of ruin all of that,” Ryan says. He makes no move to stand up, but he gives Bailey the option to choose.

Bailey stands up from the bench first and holds her hand out for Ryan to take. “Let’s go in then. I’ll talk to Jenna tomorrow; we have something planned. I might even call her tonight. As for now, yes, let’s go inside. Thanks for everything.”

They walk in the building together. Their hands are touching, but are barely brushing the surface. Once they reach the gymnasium, Bailey lets go of his hand and moves over to Jenna, who is rapidly texting someone on her cell phone. Lauren is nowhere to be found, but Bailey isn’t too worried about her. Xavier would do a good job defending her if necessary.

“Jenna!” Bailey exclaims. Jenna’s face twists up and she slowly looks up from her phone and tries to smile at Bailey. Bailey leaves Ryan’s side to go talk to Jenna; he doesn’t follow her to Jenna’s side. She’s over all the tears and all of Mark’s words. Bailey won’t let it affect her anymore. It’s all over and she doesn’t believe in what he says.

When Bailey reaches Jenna, Jenna sighs. “Bails, I’m really sorry about how Mark acted today. If he does it again, I promise to you that we’ll be done. I like him a lot, yes, but I can’t make excuses for him when he hurts you like this.” Jenna presses a button on her phone, sending the text message. “We’re still on for tomorrow’s university session?”

“Of course,” Bailey says in a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t give my project up for the world.” Jenna smiles at her and gives her a big bear hug.

“I’m so sorry for causing you so much trouble,” Jenna cries out on Bailey’s shoulder. Bailey bites her lip to not cry again. They pull away after a moment and Jenna says in a lower voice, “Is Ryan a nice guy? Like, was he concerned when you two left and everything?” Bailey attempts to detect any teasing in Jenna’s voice, but surprisingly doesn’t find any.

Bailey looks over at Ryan, who appears out of place just standing and looking around at all the high school homecoming festivities. She thinks how he acted when she was getting ridiculed and blushes. Bailey wishes she hadn’t been so weak in front of him. “Yeah, Jenna, Ryan’s a good guy for sure. He helped me outside and made me stop worrying. I wouldn’t worry about him for my sake.” Jenna’s phone buzzes and Jenna and Bailey read the text from Lauren to go over to the curb outside when the dance is over. Bailey tells Jenna, “Tell Lauren I can’t because my father is coming to pick Faith and I up at promptly midnight; we have all of tomorrow to talk to each other.” Jenna promptly texts Lauren and puts her phone away.

Next, for the last thirty minutes of the dance, Jenna and Bailey dance in the middle of the gymnasium to every song, dancing their cares away. Bailey doesn’t ask where Mark is and Jenna doesn’t ask why Ryan hasn’t joined the two of them on the dance floor. Ryan’s talking to a few other girls and guys near the doorway of the gym, so Bailey doesn’t feel bad for leaving him for her best friend. Instead, Bailey and Jenna do their best to dance to the beat played by the DJ.

The night ends abruptly when the clock strikes midnight. Bailey says goodbye to Jenna and leaves to the outside of the school to find Faith when she hears behind her, “Good night, Bailey.” She turns around to see Ryan smiling at her. There is a group of people surrounding him, but they don’t seem to even notice Bailey.

Bailey nods at him and says, “Good night to you too, Ryan.” They exchange waves at each other before Bailey leaves his line of sight to catch up with Faith. Faith is with her friends from cheerleading and they’re laughing together about some rumor. “Faith, we have to go unless you want Baba to get mad at us,” Bailey says in Mandarin to emphasize that they need to leave immediately.

All of Faith’s friends stare at Bailey like they can’t even believe she exists. Faith sighs, exasperated, and tells her friends goodbye and that she’ll text them as soon as she gets in the car. As they walk outside to their father’s car, Faith complains, “I wish I had more time to hang out with them. They really like me.” Bailey doesn’t respond to this. “Anyway, I had a great time at my first high school homecoming dance. What about you, Bailey? Did you have fun?”

Bailey takes some time to think about her answer. Her encounter with Mark had been less than ideal for sure, but the rest of the night was actually very lovely for her. Bailey says, “It was a pretty good night. Not the best night of my life, I don’t think, but it was pretty great.”

Faith opens the car door for Bailey to enter in first. “That’s good to hear, Bailey. I mean, you looked like you were having fun whenever I saw you dancing. And you slowed dance with someone! That has to be an accomplishment of some sort.”

“He’s just a friend, Faith. It’s nothing more than that and I don’t know if I want it to be anything more.” Bailey leaves the conversation like this because Faith ends up texting all her friends once the car starts moving. Bailey replays the events of the night over and over in her head. Slow dancing with Ryan was the highlight of her night by far, she decides. He’s a nice guy, like Jenna stated. Yet Bailey knows she can’t like him in a romantic way; it’ll ruin her current life and all her thoughts.

Arriving home is anticlimactic; the rest of the family is asleep and Bailey falls asleep easily. The next morning is a struggle for all the family members. Bailey heads over to the bus stop to get to the university with a pounding headache and feeling very groggy. She hopes she won’t fall asleep on the bus ride to the state university. Jenna and Lauren come to the bus stop appearing chipper and eager. They’re talking animatedly about a certain topic and greet Bailey hello before going on and on about their subject.

The bus pulls up to the stop and the three girls get on to an empty bus. They pay their fare and find seats all next to each other. Jenna and Lauren are still talking and Bailey can make out some of the topic; it’s about homework load and its growth exponentially as one enters the higher grades. Bailey completely understands their point of view. Sometime in third grade was when she really started to receive homework, and everything went uphill from there.

After they debate, Lauren asks Bailey, “What are we supposed to do when you record our voices for your project?” Bailey patiently explains every step of the procedure to her friends, who listen intently. Jenna doesn’t reach for her phone once. Bailey can’t help but think it’s because of what happened last night. She goes through one by one every sentence she’ll have them say as well as the information she needs to collect from them. It’s not that Bailey doesn’t already know the answers to the questions, because she does. Bailey wants to follow practical scientific protocol when it comes to collecting data.

By the time she finishes describing how everything will run when they arrive in the lab, the bus comes to a halt at the university’s bus stop. They hop off the bus one by one and look around the university’s campus as the bus pulls away from the curb. There’s quite a few people bustling around the university, though there aren’t as many as a normal weekday would have. Students are probably sleeping in after a long week of school. Bailey says, “Amelia’s meeting us for lunch. I don’t think she’s awake yet, otherwise I’d call her to say we’re here.” After another moment of looking around, Bailey leads the way to the social and behavioral sciences building.

They arrive at the lab. Bailey pushes the door open; Professor Yoo’s office light is on. Bailey walks over to the open office door and says, “Hello, Professor Yoo! I’m here to do some recording for my project.” Professor Yoo looks up from some paperwork and nods at Bailey to go right ahead. Bailey leaves the office and goes to her station, complete with a computer and headset with a microphone. “Who wants to go first?” Bailey asks as she boots up the computer.

Jenna takes the seat next to the audio headset. “I’ll go first. It won’t be as hard as a physics test, yes?” Lauren laughs at this statement. Bailey shakes her head.

“No, it’s not that hard. I’d never make any of my tests as difficult and intense as a physics text.” They sit in silence as Bailey opens all the programs necessary before she can start recording Jenna. She opens up her computer model as well as the audio program that allows her to save all the noise that Bailey records via the headset. “So, Jenna, here’s all the sentences you need to say, but first, here’s a sheet on all the information I need from you, not that I don’t know it all anyway.”

Jenna nods and takes the papers from Bailey. “So I just need to say all of this?” Bailey gives her a thumbs-up sign. Jenna nods once more and puts the headphones on top of her head. She adjusts the microphone appropriately next to her mouth. “I’m ready, Bails.” Bailey smiles and presses the record button on the computer screen.

Jenna babbles on about her personal life, the languages she knows, and the instrument she plays. After she goes through all this in English, she begins speaking in the copious amount of Mandarin Chinese and Russian she knows. Listening to Jenna speak is a struggle in itself; she stutters often and she honestly doesn’t know much of either foreign language. Jenna finishes eventually and Bailey stops the recording. She saves it in her audio recording folder and motions for Lauren to take Jenna’s seat.

“How bad did I sound? Admit it,” Jenna demands as Bailey sets up all the equipment for Lauren’s turn.

Bailey sighs. “You’re not the best at Mandarin or Russian, but you sounded fine considering the amount of practice you’ve had with either language. You shouldn’t worry about it at all, Jenna.” Jenna crosses her arms over her chest and pouts until Lauren puts on the headset.

Bailey signals Lauren to speak and Lauren speaks as loudly and carefully as possible. She gives all the information Bailey needs, then divulges all the language information she knows in Mandarin. Lauren’s Mandarin isn’t the best either, but she can communicate effectively. When Lauren’s done, Bailey saves Lauren’s file and tells them to sit while she goes through the information and plugs their information into the model to see where they fall in Bailey’s prediction.

Jenna and Lauren end up texting each other in order to not interrupt Bailey’s analysis. Bailey can’t hear a sound anyway because she’s listening to the recordings over and over again to get the right information out of their voices. She inputs everything into the model and lets it run. Lauren fits very nicely within her predictions, but Jenna’s musical skill doesn’t fit as well with her language skills. Bailey sighs and puts her head in her hands. This type of data, she knows, is going to happen to her sooner or later. Yet Bailey wishes Jenna hadn’t even participated; now Bailey has to include her friend in the project. No piece of data can be left out of the report.

Bailey finishes up the rest of her analysis in an hour, in just the right time for lunch as well. She says goodbye to Professor Yoo and once the three of them exit the building, Bailey calls Amelia. “Amelia, where are you? You said earlier that you would be taking us to lunch.”

“Yeah,” Amelia replies. “I’m on my way to get you guys. I was thinking of going to a Mexican restaurant nearby, if you’re all fine with that.” Bailey interrogates Jenna and Lauren before responding.

“We’re fine with that,” Bailey says. “We’ll be outside the behavioral and social sciences building,” she tells her older sister.

Amelia says, “I see you three already. We’ll see each other soon.” Amelia hangs up and Bailey releases her phone from her ear and looks around for Amelia. She doesn’t see any sign of her, so they wait at the entrance of the building until Amelia comes.

In a minute or two, a petite girl with her coat flapping in the wind behind her comes up to the front of the building. She removes her sunglasses and runs her fingers through her dark hair. She looks so polished and prim; Bailey knows it has to be Amelia. Even if she was still wearing sunglasses, Bailey could tell who Amelia is easily. “Amelia!” Bailey exclaims. She runs over to her older sister and hugs her tight. “I’m so glad that we can lunch with you today.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” Amelia says with her voice muffled. “It’ll be Thanksgiving break soon, so I’ll be back home for all of those festivities.” Bailey and Amelia pull away and Amelia greets Lauren and Jenna. “Hi, Jenna. Hey, Lauren.”

“Hello, Amelia.”

“Hey, Amelia. We’re going to a Mexican restaurant today?” Jenna asks. Amelia nods and taps something on her phone before fully responding to Jenna.

Amelia puts her sunglasses back on; she signals them with her right index finger to follow behind her like baby ducklings follow their imprinted mother. “Yes, we are. It’s one of my favorite restaurants on or off campus. My friends and I go there often to eat and study, or just to catch up. It’s our campus hotspot. If any of you three attend the state university, you can hang out at that restaurant. As long as you buy something, they don’t mind.”

Bailey watches the scenery as they walk along the busiest campus street to the restaurant. A light wind blows through the street and makes their hair and clothes ruffle with the breeze. Cars whiz past the four girls at high speeds, only stopping for stop lights. College kids are walking around the area talking and laughing with each other as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Bailey hopes to be one of them one day. Couples hold hands and walk down the street together, taking time to kiss and hold hands as they walk along. Bailey even wishes to be one of those couples in the future, though she would never admit that out loud to her friends or sister.

Little shops surround the street and people, mainly students in the college, enter and exit these shops with little bags and a horde of friends around them. A few are alone, but it’s few and far between. Bailey sighs and watches her breath in the air. It’s already cold enough to start seeing the white and gray puffs of breath coming out. The three girls walk quickly to keep up with Amelia, who is texting someone and rapidly moving to the restaurant all at once.

Amelia abruptly stops and Jenna has to adjust her position in order not to crash into Amelia. “We’re here,” Amelia says, looking up from her phone. “Let’s go in.” She opens the door for Bailey, Jenna, and Lauren to enter in. “Order whatever you like and I’ll pay for it. My new job in the fashion retail world gives me enough money to treat you guys for once.” Bailey peruses the menu as the other customers in the restaurant order. She collaborates with Jenna and Lauren and she decides on a chicken taco. Amelia orders for all of them like a professional.

They wait for their food. Jenna and Amelia launch a conversation about college athletics and what it takes to be the best or even just to score a scholarship at a big division one school. Amelia describes the process in as much detail as possible. Bailey does her best to chime in every once in a while, while Lauren listens, enamored in the conversation. Neither Bailey nor Lauren has any chance for scholarship money playing sports. Bailey would rather work in the restaurant for another year than play a sport and be ridiculed for her terrible athletic skills.

A cook announces Amelia’s name and she runs to go get their food. Bailey takes notice of the bright lights in the restaurant and the authentic feel it has with items from Mexico. She points out some of the items to Jenna, who doesn’t seem to care, and then to Lauren, who has more of an interest. Lauren and Bailey make their way over to a few paintings that show the landscape of Mexico. “Wow,” Bailey says in astonishment. “These works of art are amazing.”

Lauren touches the edge of the picture frame the painting is in. “I wish I could create something like this. You know, something beautiful and makes people feel emotion in one sight. Acting is beautiful and an art in its own shape, but visual art is different from the performing arts. One look at a painting like this, and you feel an emotion right away. Performing art takes time to build that emotion.” They stare at the paintings for a little longer until Amelia arrives at their table with their hot food.

“I love those paintings,” Amelia comments once Bailey and Lauren take their seats. “I often look at those when I don’t have anything to do when I’m eating here. They’re really nice. Sometimes they hold art auctions here with paintings like these. Maybe I’ll get you all some for your birthdays.”

Jenna leaves the table for a moment to view the art. She comes back with her eyes wide and mouth slightly open. “I did not know that they would be this beautiful to see. They’re really nice. The only thing I’m decent at is gymnastics; I can’t make anything lovely like that.”

Amelia blows on the top of her hot lentil soup. She tells Jenna, “That’s not it, Jenna. You’re awesome at gymnastics. I’m being serious here. Also, you’re great at so many other things. You’re friendly and are very sociable. Not many people can say that.” Amelia sneaks a glance at Bailey and Bailey scowls back at her. “Many people you like you and I’m sure as you get older, you’ll learn more about yourself. It’s hard to really shape an identity when you’re in high school.”

“People say that they are defined by high school reputations for a long time. It’s hard to leave behind the past,” Jenna states, her eyes pressed shut.

Amelia finishes her food and throws away her garbage. She comes back after a moment of thinking at tells Jenna, “It is hard to forget the past. If I could do that, I would in an instant, trust me on that. But we have to move on and, honestly, high school doesn’t define a person as much as it is made out to be. I wouldn’t worry about your current reputation. No one in college will care except for a few catty girls.”

Bailey tunes out the rest of the conversation to think about Amelia’s past. She has seen a good majority of Amelia’s family life and has heard enough about her relationships with various boyfriends and friends to get a relatively clear picture of Amelia’s past. She knows all about Amelia’s tension with her parents. Being a cheerleader didn’t help Amelia gain any good attention from her parents and with Dayu and Kaixiao, negative attention is worse than no attention at all. They ignored Amelia for a few months when she was in the sixth grade, but then decided that it wasn’t effective for family business to stop talking to her. By the time Faith entered middle school, Dayu and Kaixiao had no objects to Faith’s involvement in cheerleading. All Amelia’s life choices seemed to be thrown down at least once in her life by her parents. Bailey tried her best to keep Amelia in high spirits; she recognized that Amelia wanted to leave the house as soon as possible for college. Bailey never blamed her for wanting to leave the family; she just wishes Amelia would come home more often so they can see each other.

Amelia’s friends in middle school weren’t exactly the best people to be around either. They lied to her on a regular basis and excluded her out of many events. Cheerleading was the one solace she had, along with her siblings suffering through similar family situations. Leaving for college, Amelia knew her life couldn’t be any worse than what had happened in her middle and high school life. Amelia would know all of this information and insight that Bailey could only wish for one day in the future.

“I’d listen to Amelia,” Bailey says to Jenna. “She’s gone through high school and is in college now. She’s a reliable source when it comes to all this.” Amelia smiles at Bailey; the eye contact they make hints that they both understand what they’re thinking and it’s the same. Jenna doesn’t completely get it, but she doesn’t keep bringing up the subject. The four of them eat and finish up their meals so Amelia can get back to her homework and Bailey, Jenna, and Lauren can explore the college campus. Bailey really doesn’t feel like trekking around the campus she’s seen for years ever since Howie started school at the state university six years ago. She believes she’s seen everything in the campus already; how much more can there be left?

They exit the restaurant once they finish eating. Amelia leads them back to the campus. Bailey takes another look around the street. The image is the same except for the exact people that were walking before have taken on new faces and new names. She dislikes generalizing everyone into just faces and not into hearts and souls, but Bailey has no idea where they come from and who they love. It’s hard to imagine where people come from and to really understand them. She can barely comprehend her siblings; never mind people she’s never spoken with. Bailey sighs when she sees a gaggle of friends that seem like people she would talk to. Maybe one day, she’ll fit in with more people.

Amelia drops them at the entrance of the campus. She hugs Lauren first, then Jenna. When it comes time to say goodbye to Bailey, Amelia pulls Bailey close to her chest and they rock back and forth. “Don’t be too upset, Bailey. I’ll see you soon and besides, I’ll be home for Thanksgiving with Howie and Scott. It’s not even a few weeks away.” Amelia releases Bailey and holds onto her shoulders to steady her younger sister. “You can call me any time and I will answer you unless I’m in class because my professors will yell at me. Alright?”

Bailey nods. “Yeah, I will. I’ll call you.” Bailey hides her face from her sister by putting her hands up to her face. She doesn’t want to look at Amelia; if she does, maybe tears will fall. It’s not that they will be gone from each other for a long time, it’s just that they’ve survived their family life for so long together that leaving is unfathomable.

Amelia walks away from the three adolescents and waves her hand to them while putting on her sunglasses and makes her way to the dorm building she resides in. Bailey hides her sadness by diverting the topic. “Let’s go around the main buildings of the campus and work our way from there.” Bailey leads the way with Jenna and Lauren standing on either side of her.

Jenna chatters all about the scenery, like the modern architecture of the student center and the antique structure of the administration building. Bailey revels in the sound of Jenna’s voice. It’s very melodic yet high-pitched. It practically commands attention of its own, even though Jenna’s image can be formidable enough without her voice. Lauren holds onto Bailey’s arm as they walk through the student center and see all the students working on homework or coming out of the gymnasium. There’s some type of performance rehearsal going on in the one auditorium and someone is giving a lecture in one of the few classrooms in the student center. No one thinks it strange that Jenna, Lauren, and Bailey are in the student center. They appear to fit in well with everyone already in the building already.

They exit the building as quickly as they came in. Bailey tries to envision herself at the state university, walking down the campus as a student. She can imagine it relatively successfully. Bailey has a few friends by her side and a backpack thrown over her shoulder. She’s listening to an intellectual conversation that she could participate in and not get ridiculed for it, like back at Winter High School. Everything would be picturesque. But alas, she’s pulled down to earth and reality when they enter another open building together.

“Which building is this?” Bailey asks Jenna, who has taken over the reins as their tour guide. Jenna passes through classrooms without disturbing anyone in them. Lauren’s still hanging onto Bailey’s arm for some sort of protection or strength.

Jenna mutters, “It’s the mathematics building. Probably one of my least favorite buildings on a college campus, but here’s the state of the classrooms. It’s not bad at all. I can see myself learning basic math skills in one of these classrooms.” Lauren snickers once she mentions basic math skills. Bailey rolls her eyes; Jenna always exaggerates her lack of proficiency in math.

They tiptoe through the building and exit promptly. “Let’s go to a dorm building,” Lauren suggests. Jenna looks at a campus map nearby to figure out exactly where one would be.

“Which one is Amelia’s dorm room? We could go visit her,” Jenna recommends. They stare at the map for a few minutes attempting to comprehend exactly how the map operates.

“I don’t remember the name of it,” Bailey admits. “We could try tracing her footsteps, but I think that cluster of dorm buildings is one of the dorms she’s in. It doesn’t really help us at all.” They sigh, but decide to follow the map to the few dorm rooms on the west side of campus.

They pass many college students on their way and Jenna and Bailey play a people watching game in which that they try to imagine the lives of the people that pass by. The two of them end up creating an elaborate story about four students that passed by just as they were leaving the campus map. The chance of any of their ideas being correct is approximately slim to none; Bailey knows this much about her working imagination. Lauren doesn’t chime in with her own ideas, but listens carefully to the discussion that occurs between the two of her friends.

Jenna abruptly stops in front of building that is five stories tall and very wide, unusually so. “I think this is a dorm building. We can check inside, but I’m almost fully positive it is.”

Bailey takes a quick glance at it before turning back to Jenna. “This isn’t Amelia’s dorm building because this building doesn’t look familiar to me.”

“Let’s take a look,” Lauren says. She opens the door and allows Jenna and Bailey to enter in quietly as possible on the off-chance that the building isn’t a dorm building at all. The noise they hear emitting from every which way in the building signals them that this building is, in fact, a dorm room. Students are walking around in socks and messy hair. Couples are hugging and talking while friends talk about plans for tomorrow.

They move around the first floor and explore the dining hall and the lobby of the building. “This seems like a typical college dorm,” Jenna states. Bailey and Lauren both nod and make their way to the exit, trying their best not to get in the way of any of the students. Most appear friendly and not intimidating, but Bailey doesn’t want to take any chances when it comes to them.

They leave the building and decide that a campus tour led by a student at the university would have been the best option for them. They spend one more round on the main center of campus exploring the various buildings before walking back to the bus stop. “Today was a really great day,” Lauren comments as they wait for the next bus to come to the curb.

“It was,” Jenna replies. “But it’s not over yet. We still have quite a few hours left in the day to do something if we wanted. Any of you guys have ideas or should we just go home?”

Bailey replies, “I would love to keep hanging out with you guys, but I can’t. My parents really need me to work at the restaurant and I can’t leave all the work to my siblings every single day. I skipped yesterday and I know my parents are extremely upset at me not attending and helping out. So I really have to go, as much as I would love to be with you two.” Jenna and Lauren only nod; they don’t say a word for or against the Wang family. They understand the pressure her parents put on Bailey and how she has to be of service to them, otherwise she’ll be cast out. It doesn’t help that there are more siblings down the line that can fuel their anger and they can take out their anger on them. Bailey has wanted to prevent Faith, David, and Celine from getting hurt and pained, but she’s realized a long time ago that it’s too late to protect them from her parents. They live too close to each other for her to even fathom that option.

“Fine, we’ll just go to our respective homes then,” Jenna says. “I wonder if I have to deal with all my siblings back at home again.” Bailey can barely remember all of Jenna’s siblings’ names, not to mention which step-parent they came from. 

Lauren nods and the bus comes. They all hop on and find three empty seats next to each other. A conversation flows between them about schoolwork and siblings until the bus arrives in downtown Winter. They leave the bus one by one and stand on the sidewalk where everyone in bustling about in the downtown area. The leaves on the trees are almost all gone. The vibrant, yet cool fall is turning into the cold and barren winter with very little time in between for a transition.

Jenna goes home first and then Lauren leaves for Xavier’s house a few minutes after her. Bailey doesn’t desire to go to the family restaurant yet, so she stands on the sidewalk and soaks up the last of the sun’s rays before it settles down the horizon and ends the day. She lets the warm sun hit the top of her face and she feels the warmth radiate on her face and go down through her body so she’s warmed from the outside in.

“Bailey?” Someone says her name out loud. Her face drops from the sky to the side where someone is calling her. A smile blossoms on her face when she sees who it is.

“Ryan! I didn’t know you’d be out and about this weekend,” Bailey says to him. She mentally kicks herself for saying something so cheesy. She’s usually never this chipper, though she’s always known for her polite words. Maybe it’s because she got to spend time with Amelia, Jenna, and Lauren? She’s not very sure of herself, so she pinches herself under her forearm and grins at him.

Ryan walks closer to her, closing the gap slowly. “Yeah, I have an hour break before the next music lesson I have to teach today. What are you doing right now?”

Bailey moves closer to the building to allow for a better flow of foot traffic on the sidewalk they’re standing on. “Jenna, Lauren, and I went to record audio files for my independent science research project in the linguistics department. So we took the bus to the state university where the lab I work in is. Then we had lunch with my older sister who attends the university.”

“What’s your sister’s name?” Ryan asks. “Maybe I know her.”

Bailey shakes her head. “She wasn’t really involved in the music department when she went to Winter High School. Her name is Amelia Wang, daughter of the famous Wang restaurant owners.” Ryan snickers at this statement.

“Yeah, I don’t know who she is. Maybe my older brother knows her though. He was never involved in music like I am. I really don’t know why,” Ryan tells her. “My older brother and younger sister don’t really like music in general. I don’t know how they survive; music is my method of survival in this world. Without it, I would be alone forever. It’s my best friend, for sure.”

They talk a little bit about their weekends and what they plan to do tomorrow, the day before school starts up again for another hectic week. Soon will be Thanksgiving break and everyone is especially excited at school for three days off of school for an extended weekend. “Are you planning to do anything for Thanksgiving?” Bailey asks out of courtesy.

“No,” Ryan says, his face looking more and more forlorn upon the mention of the holiday. “My parents aren’t very fond of celebrating holidays. We don’t have much money to do so and besides, my family isn’t really into that sort of thing. What about you?”

“My parents aren’t either,” Bailey says, wringing her hands together as if she’s debating something very important. “But somehow, we celebrate all the major holidays. My family is Christian, so we celebrate Christmas and Easter, along with those other holidays. Thanksgiving isn’t one we generally give up either. Your family should come over to our house. If you want to come, of course. My family shouldn’t mind; I’ll ask them when I go work in the restaurant today. But it will be a fun time and Jenna and Lauren’s family will come over like they always do.”

Ryan thinks this over. He rubs his chin with his right hand and sighs. “I’ll have to ask my parents, but I’m sure they’d love to come over. For some reason, they’ve wanted to join the Chinese community living in Winter for so long, but were never able to really find friends of their own. It’s always been them against the world. It’ll be nice for them to socialize. Ask your parents for me, will you?”

“I will,” Bailey says. She whips out her cell phone and checks the time. “I should be going to work, as much as I’d love to stay at chat. I’ll ask my parents. See you at school Monday!” They wave at each other and Bailey enters the restaurant with her heart open and loved.

“Ma!” Bailey calls out. The restaurant is opening in approximately half an hour because from three to four in the afternoon, they have their dinner prep period and no one eats at the restaurant during that time. Her mother looks up from scrubbing a table down with hot water. Bailey grabs an apron along with other waitress accessories and makes her way to her mother. “Ma, hello!” Bailey begins in Mandarin. Her mother doesn’t look up this time around; she keeps scrubbing.

“What do you want, daughter?” her mother responds in Mandarin. Bailey sighs. This is going to be a struggle to say out loud.

Bailey helps her mother set up the plates on the table. “My friend, Ryan Cai, wants to come over for Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of his family. They’re Chinese. They don’t usually celebrate holidays and barely know anyone in the Chinese community. It would be nice to have them over and get to know more of the Chinese people that live here, right?”

Her mother finishes scrubbing the table and moves on to the next one. “I suppose they can come over if they like. There’s no pressure. The Belodorov’s and Wen’s are still coming over, so I don’t know if they want to meet them too. Jenna can be pretty scary.” Kaixiao winks and Bailey laughs with her mother. Her mother’s first impression of Jenna was less than ideal; Jenna wasn’t the nicest child on the planet.

Bailey types out a text to Ryan when she’s done setting all the tables in the restaurant. It reads, “Ryan, my mother said you can come over for Thanksgiving dinner.” She puts her phone on silent and mentally prepares herself for hours of serving others in the restaurant. David and Celine are chasing each other around the restaurant, and Faith is playing a game on her phone while simultaneously texting some of her friends on the cheerleading team.

“How are your friends doing?” Bailey asks her younger sister before a stream of customers come to eat. “I never see your friends at our house. Who are your friends and why don’t they come over all the time like Jenna and Lauren do?”

Faith sets down her phone on a spare chair and stops playing the game. “My friends are still Cierra and Skye and they will always be my friends. Leaving memories like the ones I have with them is never going to happen. Besides, I love them to death and they love me back. We talk all the time and they don’t come over because they’re busy with their own lives and they live somewhat far away. They aren’t allowed to come out so late like Jenna and Lauren are. My best friend I have on the cheerleading team, Marie, lives on the other side of town, so she can’t come.” Faith takes Bailey’s hands in her own and they hold each other. “Also, I can’t bear for her to see what my family life is really like with my parents and everything. Cierra and Sky have known what it’s like for me to live with parents to seem to forget I exist, but Marie has no idea. It would be embarrassing for me to show that part of my life to someone whose life seems to be so elegant and perfect.”

“Our family isn’t embarrassing,” Bailey says in defense. In reality, Bailey hides her family from people she doesn’t know very well too. She wonders why she even invited Ryan and his family over for dinner. They’ll be able to hint at the cracks her family has immediately once they walk in. Bailey takes in deep breaths before continuing. “Our parents aren’t ideal, but your siblings are there to support you. Am I really that terrible to be around, Faith?”

“Yes,” Faith says with a straight face. Bailey is about to leave Faith by herself in the small alcove where customers wait when there’s no seats, but Faith grabs onto Bailey’s waitressing apron and pulls her back to her seat. “I’m kidding, Bailey. Sometimes you bring up really awkward moments, but you’re never embarrassing. In fact, I love you a lot and would introduce any of my friends to you, even if they would never understand your love for learning and gaining knowledge and things like that. Don’t worry, you’re not the one I’d be nervous about. It’d be our family dynamic in general I’d be concerned with.”

Bailey nods and helps her sister stand up when the clock strikes time for work. “We’ll talk later about this, Faith.” Faith responds with a nod and they begin to serve the first customers that come into the restaurant. The first hour or two is never very busy; Bailey has more time to relax and adjust to the waitressing system before a long line of customers form and it’s hard to keep up with all the people.

She cleans up tables, brings drinks, and explains the buffet system over and over again to every table. Bailey’s tired of the same routine over and over again, but she performs it faithfully. When the day ends and the bright light turns into night, Bailey feels only relief.

The next Sunday is relatively boring and normal. By the time Monday afternoon comes around, Bailey is extremely tired with everything that’s happening in her life. Soon, a break will come her way, but she’ll be working so hard that it’ll slip right out of her hands. She goes over to the lab after school and sees a piece of paper lying on the keyboard at the computer she’s working on. “People have called to sign up for recording times for your project. I told them all to come on Wednesday and they will record one by one once you come from school to the lab.”

Bailey sets aside the note and logs onto the computer. Her project is really starting to hit the ground running now that people have volunteered for her to use them in her trials. Now she’ll have to come more often to analyze all the data and make sure everything is polished before the submission deadline. She really wants to finish up early and not wait until everything is due all at once.

Some lab students come in with hot drinks in their hands and laughing. “Hey, Bailey!” they call out to her. One of them says, “We wish you could’ve come in a few minutes earlier. You could’ve come and gotten coffee with us.”

“I don’t drink coffee,” Bailey says, rubbing the back of her neck and trying not to appear shy and flustered. They wave goodbye at Bailey and go to their workstations to do their own linguistics research.

Bailey plays around with her computer model and the three pieces of data she’s collected before she has nothing else to do except read linguistics articles in the linguistics journal Professor Yoo subscribes to. Bailey reads about current linguistics research via the magazine. She’s enamored in the world where everything is learned carefully and meticulously. When she’s done going through the issues of the journal, she opens up some news articles in Russian and reads them to practice her Russian literacy.

Time passes quickly and the clock ticks for Bailey to go home and work in the restaurant. The next day, a Tuesday, passes similarly. On that Wednesday, once the ending bell rings at the end of the school day, Bailey runs out of her physics classroom and springs to the downtown Winter bus stop so she can get to the university as soon as possible. She wants to set up the audio equipment before her test subjects arrive at the lab. Appearing messy and unprofessional is the exact opposite of what Bailey desires to be seen as.

She enters the lab and there’s no one besides the graduate students that she sees waiting for her. Bailey gulps for air and then sets up everything to perfection. If she makes any mistakes, she’ll be forever scarred by the event and known as unprofessional.

Fifteen minutes after she arrives at the lab, her first volunteer arrives. He’s a bit scrawny with red hair and freckles; his big glasses give him an intelligent-looking appearance. “I’m here to provide information and record for the project?” Bailey lets him sit down in the chair next to her and she explains the purpose of the project. She asks which languages he speaks and he replies, “I speak German and English.” Bailey nods and begins to find sentences for him to say in English. “My name is Robert Johnson, though most people call me Bob. Your name is Bailey Wang? I think I remember that from the flyer.”

As Bailey prepares him for the interview process, they talk about themselves along the way. Bob was born in Germany and moved to the United States when he was around the age of one year old. Bailey speaks about her family and how much languages she knows. Bob tells her about college life and his life as a freshman at the state university; he isn’t sure about what he plans to major in. Bailey tells him a little bit about high school in Winter, though there isn’t much to say.

Eventually, everything is up and running, so Bob begins to speak in English and German about the instruments he plays and says the formulaic sentences provided Bailey. When he’s finished, Bailey saves the audio recording and Bob leaves with a nice goodbye. Hopefully, Bailey thinks, everyone who walks in this door and records for me will be as lovely as him. She doesn’t want there to be any condescension from the college students that attend the university. She is a human being and all humans are on the same level. No one is greater than the other.

More and more people come into the lab. Bailey deals with every single one of them; most are nice and friendly and similar to Bob in that regard. A few are slightly more challenging to deal with, but Bailey handles them with as much patience as she can muster. Even they aren’t too bad. By the end of the day, she’s so tired and saves all the audio posts. She’ll figure out how they fit in the model tomorrow, considering it’s already past eight at night and Bailey has yet to eat dinner. She won’t even be able to work in the restaurant today, though her family needs all the help.

She goes home on the bus and walks home. Bailey wonders what life will throw at her next.


	8. Chapter 7

Bailey sets the dinner table at her house with plates, napkins, and utensils. Soon, everyone her family has invited will come over for a huge turkey and a filling meal created by a Chinese restaurant cook. She doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but Bailey still sets everything up before anyone arrives.

The data she collected that Wednesday helped her a lot as she was fixing the model and going through the data to confirm or deny her hypothesis. She still needs more people to get information from, so Bailey put out more flyers on different parts of campus in order to garner more interest from college students to come out and volunteer. She really doesn’t want to go through the struggle of asking people to help her for money, since she has no money of her own to give out. The lab isn’t a money maker either. Bailey has nothing to give to any of the people she asks for help.

She finishes setting the table and the doorbell rings as soon as she sets down the last fork. Bailey rushes to the door when it appears that no one will get it. “Lauren!” she cries out when she sees her best friend with a dish of food in her hands and a smile on her face. “What food is that?”

Lauren hands it over to the host. “My parents made an apple pie in case your family didn’t make a delicious and delectable dessert. It’s really good.” Lauren’s parents appear behind her and Bailey lets them into her house. “Who else is coming?” Lauren asks Bailey as their parents greet each other. They make their way to the kitchen and set the apple pie down on a counter.

“Jenna and her family,” Bailey says for starters.

Lauren’s mouth opens wide. “Her whole family is coming over? Like, everyone?”

Bailey shakes her head and giggles at Lauren’s bewildered look on her face. “No, of course not. That would be a complete disaster for everyone involved. But Jenna’s step-father and mother are coming, along with whoever lives in that house right now. Also, the Cai family is coming over for dinner. You remember Ryan Cai, Lauren?” Lauren nods. “Yeah, he’s coming to eat too. Don’t embarrass me, please. We just have started being friends and I don’t want you to ruin it. Or, rather, I don’t want Jenna to ruin it.”

“Duly noted,” Lauren replies. “I won’t say anything offensive that will hurt him in any way. I can’t say the same for Jenna.”

Bailey sighs and gets Lauren to help her clean the rest of the house. In a few minutes, the door rings and Jenna’s huge family streams in.

~more coming eventually


End file.
